THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


SCANDINAVIAN    HISTORY. 


SCANDINAVIAN 
HISTORY. 


BY 

E.    C.    OTTE. 


WITH  MAPS. 


f ffo  gork  : 
MACMILLAN    AND    CO. 

AND     LONDON. 
1894. 

[The  Right  of  Translation  and  Reproduction  is  Reserved.'] 


LONDON   : 

R.  CLAY,    SONS,    AND   TAYLOR,    PRINT1RS, 
BREAD    STKIfcT    HILL. 


DL 


CONTENTS. 


PACK 
Rulers  of  Denmark,  Sweden,  and  Norway xii 

CHAPTER  I. 
THE  EARLY  NORTH. 

"ART 

I.  Hyperboreans          .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .    *    .  1 

II.  Northmen  in  the  South 7 

III.  Origin  of  the  Northmen           .......  9 

IV.  The  Aryan  Races 13 

CHAPTER  II. 
THE     DANES     IN     EARLY    TIMES 

I.  The  Northmen  at  Home          .         .         .         .         .         .  i? 

II.   Denmark         ..........        22 

III.   End  of  the  Mythic  Age  26 

CHAPTER  III. 
THE     NORTHMEN     IN     EARLY     TIMES. 

I.   Christianity  in  the  North          .....  -3' 

II.  Denmark 3() 

III.   Habits  of  the  Northmen  .       39 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  IV. 
DENMARK     IN     EARLY    TIMES. 

PART  I'ACK 

I.   First  Queen  of  Denmark          .....  -45 

II.  Knud  and  his  Sons          .....  .         .       51 


CHAPTER  V. 

I.  Sweden  and  Norway       ......  5^ 

II.  Northern  Conquests 65 

III.  Norwegian  Settlements    ....  60 


CHAPTER  VI. 

I.  Iceland 72 

II.   Sweden  and  Norway       .         .         .         .         .         .          .         -77 

III.  Northern  Discoveries       .... 


CHAPTER  VII. 

I.  Svend  Estridsen,  the  Father  of  Danish  King> 

II.  .Svend  Estridsen's  Sons  .         .  9/1 

III.  Laws  of  Denmark  .........  97 

IV.  Revenge  of  the  Guild-brothers          .         .  icxi 


CHAPTER   VIII. 
THE 


I.   Trouble.-,  before  the  Valdeinars 
II.    Death  of  Valdemar  and  Absalon 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  IX. 
DENMARK     FROM     1202    TO    1259. 

PART  PAGE 

I.   Denmark  under  Valdemar  II.  (Sejr)  and  his  Sons     .         .         .113 
II.   Valdemar's  Closing  Years         .         .         .         .         .         .         .117 

III.   A  Century  of  Troubles    ........      122 


CHAPTER  X. 
DENMARK     FROM    1259    TO    1387. 

I.   An  Age  of  Troubles         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .128 

II.   Decline  of  the  Royal  Power    .......      130 

III.   The  Credit  of  Denmark  revives        ......      136 


CHAPTER  XL 
SWEDEN     IN     EARLY     TIMES. 

I.   First  Christian  Kings        ........      143 

II.   Troubled  Times       .........      147 

III.   The  Early  Troubles  of  Norway         .          .  ...      150 


CHAPTER  XII. 
SWEDEN     FROM    1250    TO    1400. 


II.   The  Three  Unfriendly  Brother; 


III.    Half  a  Century  of  Troubles 


IV.   .Sweden  under  Foreign  Ru! 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 
NORWAY    FROM    1217    TO    1400. 

FART  PAGE 

I.  Norway's  Best  Time        .  .         .         .         .         .         .        .169 

II.  The  Last  of  the  Hakons 1 72 

III.  The  Triple-Crowned  Queen  .......      175 

IV.   Sweden  under  a  Queen    .  .         .         .         .         .         .         .177 


CHAPTER  XIV. 
DENMARK     FROM     14"    TO    1448. 

I.   Erik  loses  Three  Crowns          .         .         .         .         .         .         .183 

II.  The  Oldenburg  Line  begins      .         .         .         .         .         .         .188 

III.   Sweden  under  Danish  Rulers   .......      192 


CHAPTKK  XV. 
DENMARK     UNDER    THE     OLDENBURG     LINE. 

I.   The  Father  of  the  Oldenburg  Kings 198 

II.  Crown  Bartered  for  Favours     .......  203 

III.  The  Brave  Ditmarshers 205 

IV.  The  Fall  of  the  Stures     .  208 


CHAPTER   XVI. 
DENMARK       FROM     1500. 

I.   Christian's  bringing  up     ........  212 

II.   The  Swedish  Crown  lost  .          .  215 

III.  King  Christian  loses  all    ........  219 

IV.  Denmark  accepts  the  Protestant  Faith  .          .  224 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 
SWEDEN     BETWEEN    1520    AND    1568. 

PART  I'AGE 

I.   Gustaf  Vasa  frees  Sweden       .......  227 

II.   Gustaf  rules  with  a  Strong  Hand     ......  232 

III.   Queen  Elizabeth's  Suitor          .......  237 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 
DENMARK     FROM     1559    To    1648. 

I.   War  between  Sweden  and  Denmark 244 

II.  The  Greatest  of  the  Oldenburg  Princes    .....     249 
III.  Denmark's  Decline  ........     254 


CHAPTER  XIX. 
SWEDEN     BETWEEN     1568    AND    1611. 

I.  The  Sons  of  Gustaf  Vasa 257 

II.    Religious  Troubles  in  Sweden  ......      263 

III.   The  Rise  of  Swedish  Power     .......     267 


CHAPTER  XX. 
SWEDEN     FROM    1611    TO    1644. 

I.   The  Hero-King  of  Sweden      .... 
II.   The  Death  of  the  Swedisli  Hero 
III.   The  Swedish  Generals 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  XXI. 
SWEDEN     FROM    1644    TO    1697. 

PAKT  PAGE 

I.   The  only  Swedish  Queen-Rcgiiant   ......  289 

II.   Swedish  Conquests           ........  294 

III.   The  King  becomes  Absolute    .......  299 


CHAPTER  XXII. 
DENMARK     FROM    1648    TO    1730. 

I.   Denmark  Humbled          ........  302 

II.   Absolute  Power  established     .......  306 

III.  The  Origin  of  Titles        ........  310 

IV.  "  The  Type-Quarrel  "     ........  312 


CHAPTER  XXIII. 
DENMARK    FROM    1730    TO    1839. 

1.    A  Period  of  Restraint     .          .          .          .          .          .          .          •      3'7 

II.    Struensee's  Rule      .          .          .          .          .          .          .          .  321 

HI.    England  humbles  Denmark     .......      324 


CIIAI'THR   XXIV. 
SWEDEN     FROM     i&g;    TO     1771. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  XXV. 
SWEDEN    FROM    1771    TO    1872. 

I'ART  PAGE 

I.  The  Swedish  Line  of  Kings    .......  348 

II.  Troubles  in  Sweden         ........  353 

III.  Great  Changes  in  Sweden        .......  356 

IV.  A  French  Line  of  Kings          .......  359 


CHAPTER  XXVI. 
DENMARK    SINCE    1839. 

I.  The  Language  Trouble    ........     363 

II.   Success  of  the  Danes        ........     369 

III.   The  Reigning  Dynasty    ........     373 


377 


LIST   OF   MAPS. 

Denmark  under  King  Gorm  "  Den  Gamle  "  (9th  Century)          .         .  45 
Settlements  of  the  Northmen  in  the  Western  Ocean  (9th  and    loth 

Centuries)           ..........  65 

Denmark  under  Waldemar  Sejr  (i3th  Century)          .          .          .  113 

Sweden  under  the  Vasas  (in  the  1 7th  Century)           ....  263 


RULERS    OF    DENMARK,    SWEDEN,    AND 
NORWAY. 


DENMARK. 


SWEDEN. 


GORM'S  LINE. 
Gorm     the    Old, 

about  .  .  .  860 
Harald  Blaatand  935 
Svend  Tveskreg  .  985 
Harald.  .  .  .  1014 
Knud  the  Great  .  1018 
Harthaknud  .  .  1035 
Magnus  the  Good, 

of  Norway  .     .  1042 

THE  ESTRIDSEN 
LINE. 


Svend  Estridsen . 
Harald  Hejn  .     . 
Knud  (the  Saint). 
Olaf- 1  lunger  .     . 
Erik  Kjegod  .     . 
Niels     .     .      .     . 
Erik  Emun     .     . 
Erik  the  Lamb   . 
Knud     V.     and| 
Svend     .      .     ) 
Yaldemar  I.   . 
Knud  VI.       .     . 
Valdemar  II. 
Erik  Plovpenning 
Abel     .      .      .      . 
Christopher  I.      . 
Erik  Glipping 
Krik  Menved  . 
Christopher  II.    . 


1047 
1076 
1080 
1086 
1095 
1103 
1134 
1137 

1147 

1157 
1182 
1202 
1241 
1250 
1252 
1259 
1286 
1319 


BJORN    JERNSIDES 
LINE. 

Erik  Sejrsa:!  .  .  933 
Olaf  the  Lap  King  993 
Anund  Jakob  .  1Q24 
Edmund  the  Old  1052 

STENKIL'S  LINE. 
Stenkil.     .     .     .  1055 
Inge  I.       ...  1066 
Inge  II.          .     .  1112 
Philip  ....  1120 ' 

Sl'ERKER'S  LI\E. 
Sverker  I.       .     .  1130 
Erik      IX.      (the 

Saint)  .  .  .1155 
Karl  Sverkersson  1160 
Knud  Eriksson  -1167 
Sverker  1 1.  .  -1195 
Erik  Knutsson  .1210 
Johan  Sverkersson  12 16 
Erik  La>spe  .  .  1222 


Valdemar  .  .  .  1250 
Magnus  Ladulaa.s  1279 
Birger  ....  1290 
Magnus  Smek  .1319 
Albrecht  of  Meck- 
lenburg. .  . 1363 


}'M;I.INGAR  LINE. 
I  larald  I  laarfnger  890 ' 
Erik  Blodoxe    .     933 
IlakonL,  Athel- 

stan's  fostre  .  933 
I  larald  Graafell.  963 
Hakon  Jarl  .  .  977 
Olaf  Trygvnssen  995 
Erik  and  Svend 

Jarl  .  .  .  1000 
Olaf  (the  Saint).  1015 
Svend  .  .  .  1Q3Q 
Magnus  theGood  1035 
Harald  Ilar- 

draade  .  .  1047 
OlafKyne  .  .  1066 
Magnus  15an'i;J  .  1093 
Olaf  ....  1103 
Ejsten  .  .  -1115 
Sigurdjorsalafer  1121 
MagniMhelilind) 
IlaraldGille  .I1 
Sigurd  II.  ..  H36 
Ejsten  .  .  .1155 
Inge  ....  H57 
Ilakon  II.  .  .  H61 
Magnus  Erlings- 

son       .  .  1162 

Sverre      .  -1184 

Ilakon  III.        .   1202 
Guttorin  . 


1130 


Inge  liardsson  .  J 


1204 


RULERS  OF  DENMARK,  SWEDEN,  AND  NORWAY. 


DENMARK. 

SWEDEN. 

NORWAY. 

Interregnum  .     .  1332 

Interregnum  .     .  1389 

Hakon  IV.    .     .  1217 

Valdemar  III.     .  1340 

Margaret  .     .     .  1397 

Magnus      Laga- 

Olaf      ....  1375 

ErikofPomerania  1412 

baeter    .     .     .  1263 

Margaret  .     .     .  1387 

Karl    Knuclsson, 

ErikPrasstehader  1280 

between 

Hakon  V.     .     .  1299 

DENMARK    AND 
NORWAY. 

ErikofPomerania  1412 

1448-57  ;  1467-70 

Sten     Sture     the 
Elder     .     .     .  1470 

Magnus  Smek    .  1319 
Hakon  VI.   .     .  1355 
Olaf    ....  1380 

Christopher       of 

Svante  Nielsson  .  1503 

Margaret  .     .     .  1387 

Bavaria  .     .     .  1439 

Sten     Sture,    the 

THE  OLDENBURG 

Younger     .     .  1512 

LINE, 

THE  VASA  LINE. 

Christian  I.     .     .  1443 

Gustaf  I.    .     .     .  1523 

Hans     ....  1481 

Erik  XIV.      .     .  1560 

Christian  II.  .     -1513 

Johan  III.      .     .  1568 

Frederick  I.   .     .  1533 

Sigismund      .      .  1592 

Christian  III.      .  1533 

Charles  IX.    .     .  1600 

Frederick  II.       .  1559 

Gustaf  Adolf  II.   1611 

Christian  IV.       .  1588 

Christina  .      .     .  1632 

Frederick  III.     .  1648 

Charles  X.      .      .  1654 

Christian  V.    .     .  1670 

Charles  XI.    .     .  1660 

Frederick  IV.     .  1699 

Charles  XII.       .  1697 

Christian  VI.       .  1730 

Frederick            of 

Frederick  V.  .     .  1745 

Hesse     .     .     -1718 

Christian  VII.     .  1766 
Frederick  VI.     .  1808 

Adolphus  Frede- 
rick .     .     .     .1751 

DENMARK  WITHOUT 

Gustavus  III.      -1771 

NORWAY.                    Gustavus  IV.       .  1792 

mVTTT.   .  IBM       Charles  XIII.     .1809 

GL  UCKSR  UK  G  L INE . 
Christian  IX.       .  1863 


THE  BERNADOTTE 

LINE. 

SWEDEN   AND 

NORWAY. 

CharlesJohnXIV.  1 81 8 
Oscar  I.  .  .  .  1844 
Charles  XV.  .  .  1859 
Oscar  II.  .  .  ,  1872 


SCANDINAVIAN    HISTORY. 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE     EARLY     NORTH. 

Hyperboreans — Ignorance  of  Southerners  in  regard  to  Northmen — Pytheas; 
his  travels  ;  his  voyage  to  Thule — The  search  for  Thule — How  the 
people  lived  2,200  years  ago — -The  Lung  of  the  Sea,  meaning  of  term — 
Pytheas  a  scientific  traveller — Professor  Nilsson — Phoenicians  in  the 
North ;  their  religion — Superstitions  of  Northern  people  reflect  the 
older  faith — The  Kimbri — Wulfstan  and  Ohthere — Alfred's  history  of 
Orosius — Northmen  swaim  southwards  ;  the  Romans  defeat  them — Ideas 
in  regard  to  Scandinavia — Amber  beads  the  cause  of  a  better  knowledge 
being  gained — The  Skalds — The  Goths — The  earlier  inhabitants  of  the 
North — The  days  of  the  week  ;  their  names — The  gods— Odin's  faith  ; 
its  precepts  ;  his  character ;  his  favour  given  to  the  rich — The  Nor- 
rsena  Mai — The  Aryans — Our  Aryan  forefathers — Runes — The  Veering- 
jar — The  Vikingar. 

PART  I. 
HYPERBOREANS. 

The  Hyperboreans. — THE  ancient  Greeks  and  Romans  had 
very  false,  and  what  seem  to  us,  now  that  we  know  so  much 
more  about  it  than  they  did — very  absurd  ideas  of  the  north  of 
Europe ;  for  they  thought  that  it  was  all  made  up  of  ice,  snow, 
mists,  clouds  and  darkness,  and  that  far,  far  away  beyond  the 
north  wind,  there  lived  a  race  of  beings,  whom  they  called  Hy- 
perboreans, or  Outside  North-winders  ! 

These  hyperboreans  were  fabled  to  be  mortals  living  in  per- 
fect peace  with  their  gods  and  among  themselves,  and  dwelling 

i; 


SCAA'DLVA  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 


in  such  a  rich  land,  and  under  such  bright  sunny  skies,  that 
fruits  and  grains  ripened  there  without  needing  the  care  of  the 
husbandman.  Plenty  abounded  everywhere.  No  one  suffered 
pain  or  illness  of  any  kind,  and,  therefore,  as  the  old  men  and 
women  in  that  blessed  land  did  not  die  as  elsewhere  from 
disease  or  weakness,  those  who  grew  weary  of  living  put  a 
speedy  end  to  their  lives  by  throwing  themselves  headlong  down 
some  high  cliff  into  the  foaming  depths  of  the  sea,  which  opened 
to  receive  them,  and  then  gently  closed  over  their  bodies. 

By  degrees,  men  began  to  doubt  if  mortals  could  find  such 
charming  abodes  upon  any  part  of  this  earth,  even  if  they  were 
lucky  enough  to  get  beyond  the  north  wind  ;  and  so  the  belief 
in  hyperboreans  died  out.  But,  for  all  that,  the  Northmen,  as 
the  natives  of  Scandinavia  generally,  or  sometimes  only  the 
Danes,  were  called,  had  continued  to  swarm  southward  every 
year,  from  one  century  to  another,  before  other  nations  learned 
to  know  from  which  direction  they  came,  or  what  was  the  name 
of  their  country. 

The  most  ancient  account  that  we  possess  of  the  North  was 
that  by  a  native  of  Massilia,  the  present  Marseilles,  who  lived 
more  than  350  years  before  the  birth  of  Christ.  This  traveller, 
whose  name  was  Pytheas,1  was  either  a  trader,  or  an  astronomer, 
sent  by  his  Government  to  enquire  into  the  position  and 
nature  of  the  northern  lands  from  which  the  Phoenicians  brought 
away  tin  and  amber  and  other  products,  which  they  could  not 
obtain  nearer  home.  But,  whether  an  astronomer  or  a  trader. 
a  Greek  or  a  Phoenician,  Pytheas  must  have  been  a  bold  man 
to  have  left  the  sunny  skies  of  the  South  to  embark  upon  a 
voyage  which  carried  him  over  rough  seas  along  the  western 
shores  of  Europe  to  that  far  distant  mysterious  North,  when- 
even  the  learned  men  of  his  own,  and  much  later  times,  believed 
there  was  nothing  to  be  found  beyond  a  dreary  waste  of  mist- 

1  We  may  reckon  Pytheas  as  belonging  to  the  same  time  as  Alcxand 
the  Great,  who  was  born  in  the  year  356,  and  died  in  323,  B.C.     Massilia 
Massalia  is  believed  to  have  been  founded  by  the  Phoenicians,  who  had  the 
a  temple  to  Baal,  which  in  later  times,  when  the  Greeks  became  masters 
the  place,  was  used  for  the  worship  of  Apollo.    Ancient  coins  have  been  di 
up  at  the  spot,  bearing  on  one  side  the  image  of  the  Sun-god,  and   on  tl 
other  that  of  a  wheel  with  four  spikes,  which  was  one  of  the  chief  emblems 
of  HaaL 


THE  EARLY  NORTH. 


covered  snow  and  ice.  Pytheas,  indeed,  as  a  native  of  one  of 
the  greatest  trading  ports  in  the  world,  may  have  been  better 
informed  than  the  Latin  and  Greek  authors,  who,  more  than 
three  hundred  years  after  his  time,  criticised  his  writings  and 
laughed  at  his  accounts  of  what  he  had  seen.  Yet  we  can 
scarcely  wonder  that  men  like  Strabo  and  others,  who  believed 
that  no  human  beings  were  to  be  met  with  further  north  than 
the  Elbe, — although  they  had  some  faith  in  the  notion  of  a. 
land  beyond  the  north  wind, — should  have  treated  his  narrative 
as  nothing  better  than  a  mere  traveller's  tale.  For  us,  how- 
ever, who  have  to  thank  him  for  the  earliest  glimpse  which 
we  can  obtain  of  the  homes  of  the  Northmen,  his  notices, 
scanty  as  they  are,  have  special  interest. 

Pytheas  in  Tlmle. — The  voyages  of  Pytheas  brought  him  to 
our  own  shores,  but,  unfortunately,  we  know  no  more  of  his 
visit  to  Britain,  which  he  calls  "  Albion,"  than  the  mere  fact 
that  he  travelled  over  great  part  of  the  country.  Although  it  is 
a  matter  of  regret  that  no  notice  of  his  in  regard  to  the  inhabi- 
tants of  Albion,  more  than  two  thousand  two  hundred  years  ago, 
has  come  down  to  us,  we  may  form  some  idea  of  the  condition 
of  the  inhabitants  from  what  he  relates  of  the  people  of  the 
more  northern  countries  which  he  visited,  and  which  could  not 
have  been  very  far  distant,  as  he  tells  us  he  reached  them  after 
sailing  for  six  days  away  from  the  coasts  of  Albion.  The  most 
remarkable  of  the  places  described  by  him  was  an  island  which, 
he  calls  Tlmle,  and  where,  according  to  his  report,  amber  was 
thrown  up  by  the  sea  in  such  abundance  that  the  people  used 
it  for  fuel.  The  exact  whereabouts  of  this  spot  is  still  undecided, 
and  at  one  time  its  re-discovery  was  the  object  of  much  specu- 
lation and  of  many  strange  adventures,  until,  in  the  middle  ages, 
the  finding  of  the  true  Thule  seemed  to  the  minds  of  some  per- 
sons nearly  as  important  an  exploit  as  the  finding  of  the  true- 
sources  of  the  Nile  is  to  us  in  the  present  day.  Some  have 
thought  that  the  Thule  of  Pytheas  was  the  north  of  Jutland,  but 
it  would  seem  more  probable,  from  what  he  tells  us  of  the  great 
length  of  the  days  there  at  midsummer/  that  it  was  nearer  the 

1  According  to  Strabo,  Pytheas  said  that  in  Thule  the  nights  at  midsum- 
mer were  only  two  or  three  hours  long,  and  according  to  another  authority, 
he  was  taken  by  the  barbarians  to  see  the  place  where  the  sun  slept  in  winter. 

B    2 


SCANDINA  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 


north  pole,  perhaps  one  of  the  many  islands  which  skirt  the 
northern  coasts  of  Sweden  and  Norway.  At  all  events  it  must 
have  been  somewhere  in  Scandinavia,  and  on  that  account  all 
that  we  read  of  Thule  and  the  lands  near  it  is  of  interest  to  us 
in  regard  to  the  early  history  of  the  condition  of  the  ancient 
Northmen. 

According  to  Pytheas,  th?  natives  of  a  land  a  little  to  the 
south  of  Thule  thrashed  the  grain  of  which  they  made  bread,  in 
large  roofed-in  buildings,  where  it  was  carefully  stored  away 
under  cover,  "  because  the  sun  did  not  always  shine  there,  and 
the  rain  and  the  snow  often  came  and  spoilt  the  crops  in  the 
open  air."  These  people,  moreover,  enclosed  gardens,  in  which 
were  grown  hardy  plants  and  berries,  which  they  used  for  food, 
while  they  kept  bees,  and  made  a  pleasant  drink  out  of  the 
honey.  They  were  very  eager  to  trade  with  the  foreigners  who 
came  to  their  shores  for  amber,  but  keen  in  making  a  bargain, 
and  always  ready  and  well  able  to  fight,  if  they  were  offended. 
or  thought  themselves  ill-used.  This  picture  of  the  people  of 
northern  Europe  about  the  time  that  Alexander  the  Great  was 
making  his  conquests,  or  more  than  two  thousand  two  hundred 
years  ago,  proves  to  us,  therefore,  that  they  were  not  mere 
savages,  but  had  already  learned  many  useful  arts. 

The  Lung  of  the  Sea. — There  was  one  thing  described  by 
Pytheas,  which,  on  first  hearing  of  it,  seems  to  have  nothing  in 
common  with  anything  ever  seen  now-a-days.  This  extraordi- 
nary thing,  which  he  called  pncumon  thalassios,  "  lung  of  the 
sea,"  was,  according  to  Strabo's  report  of  his  description,  neither 
earth,  sea,  nor  sky,  but  a  blending  together  of  all  three;  a 
something  in  which  land,  water,  and  air  seemed  to  tloat  and 
mingle  together,  producing  a  heaving  girdle  round  the  shore, 
along  which  neither  feet  of  men  nor  animals  could  make 
their  way,  nor  boats  be  moved  by  oars  or  sails.  For  a  long 
while  this  extraordinary  thing  excited  the  wonder  of  all  who 
read  or  heard  of  Pytheas'  account  of  it.  Put  the  wonder  has 
ceased  since  it  has  been  discovered  that  lung  cf  the  sea  was  a 
common  name  among  the  Greeks  for  the  Jelly-fish  or  Medusa, 
numbers  of  which  abound  in  the  waters  of  the  Mediterranean, 
and  must  have  been  well  known  to  his  countrymen  of  Massilia. 
Hence  it  has  not  unreasonably  been  conjectured  that  Pytheas, 


THE  EARLY  NORTH. 


wishing  to  describe  to  his  friends  at  home  the  appearance  of 
ice  floating  on  the  waters  of  the  ocean,  which  they  had  never 
seen,  compared  it  to  the  shoals  of  Jelly-fish  which  fringed  their 
shores  in  a  living  girdle  of  moving,  white,  half- transparent 
matter. 

In  spite  of  the  ridicule  of  Strabo  and  others,  Pytheas  must 
have  been  what,  in  these  days,  we  should  call  a  scientific  traveller, 
and  the  little  that  we  know  of  his  labours  makes  us  feel  that, 
whatever  the  ancients  may  have  thought  of  him,  he  has  given 
us  the  report  of  a  careful  and  correct  observer.  We  are,  more- 
over, justified  in  putting  confidence  in  him,  as  we  know  that  he 
was  one  of  the  first  who  determined  the  position  of  the  north 
pole  in  the  heavens  ;  and  although  he  must  have  had  very  im- 
perfect instruments,  he  also  fixed  the  latitude,  or  true  geographi- 
cal position  of  places  so  correctly,  that  with  all  our  better  means 
of  observing,  we  have  only  been  able  in  the  present  day  to 
detect  an  error  of  forty-two  seconds  in  the  latitude  which  he 
gives  for  Massilia,  the  present  Marseilles. 

Baal's  worship  in  the  North. —  Of  late  years  many  learned 
writers  of  Scandinavia  have  made  the  history  and  travels  of 
Pytheas  a  special  object  of  their  studies,  and  foremost  amongst 
them  stands  Professor  Nilsson  of  Stockholm,  who  has  discovered 
many  proofs  of  the  presence  of  the  Phoenicians  in  northern 
Europe  in  very  ancient  times.  In  a  work  which,  although  it  is 
very  learned,  is  also  most  charming,  he  has  told  us  that  there  was 
a  time  when  the  people  of  Scandinavia  worshipped  the  god  Baal 
of  the  Phoenicians,  and  let  their  young  children,  as  well  as  their 
cattle,  and  all  that  they  held  precious,  be  passed  through  the 
fire  of  Moloch.  They  set  up  images  of  the  sun,  which  they  re- 
presented under  different  forms,  as  circles,  wheels,  pillars,  and 
similar  figures,  and  they  used  great  metal  kettles  in  their  sacri- 
fices, remains  of  which  have  been  dug  up  in  different  parts  of 
northern  Europe,  and  are  exactly  like  those  described  in 
i  Kings  c.  vii.,  as  being  made  by  Hiram,  the  Syrian,  for  Solo- 
mon's Temple.  If  any  other  proof  were  wanting  that  the  an- 
cient Phoenicians  visited  Scandinavia,  and  found  people  living 
there,  so  many  ages  ago,  such  proof  is  given  us  in  the  fact  that 
the  superstitions  of  the  inhabitants  of  those  countries  still  show 
traces  of  the  old  Phoenician  worship  of  Baal.  Remains  of  this 


SCANDINA  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 


faith  may  also  be  traced  nearer  our  own  homes ;  for,  till  very 
recent  times,  the  country  people  in  some  parts  of  Ireland  and 
Scotland,  and  even  of  England,  had  the  custom  of  celebrating 
the  return  of  midsummer-night  on  the  24th  of  June,  by  dancing 
together  round  a  large  fire  lighted  on  some  high  hill,  or 
running  three  times  through  the  fire  to  secure  the  fulfilment  of 
a  wish.  These  midsummer-night  dances,  which  were  known  in 
Britain  as  Beltanes,  are  nothing  but  the  remains  of  an  earlier 
form  of  Baal-worship,  practised  by  the  ancestors  of  the  people, 
and  followed  long  after  their  real  meaning  had  been  forgotten. 
In  our  word  yule  we  have  another  vestige  of  the  former  wor- 
ship of  Baal,  or  the  sun,  amongst  the  races  from  whom  we  have 
derived  our  language,  for  yule  once  meant  wheel,  and  the  yule- 
tide  of  the  ancient  Northmen  was  the  winter  solstice  in  Decem- 
ber, when  the  young  men,  with  loud  cries,  rolled  a  large  wheel 
downhill  to  celebrate  the  death  of  the  old  and  the  birth  of  the 
new  year ;  a  wheel  being,  in  their  eyes,  an  emblem  of  the  year, 
or  the  sun.  Long  after  Christmas-day  had  taken  the  place  of 
the  old  yule-tide,  and  men  had  become  Christians,  they  still  con- 
tinued their  December  wheel-runnings  without  knowing  why,  but 
simply  because  their  forefathers  had  done  it  before  them.  Here, 
then,  we  have  a  very  strong  proof  that  in  ancient  times,  before 
Christianity  became  the  religion  of  the  North,  the  people  had 
learned  the  practices  of  the  faith  of  Baal  ;  for  a  superstition  is 
nothing  more  than  the  shadow  of  a  former  belief  that  has  passed 
away,  which  can  no  more  have  sprung  up  of  itself  than  a  shadow 
can  be  formed  apart  from  the  object  which  it  represents. 

According  to  Professor  Nilsson,  the  worship  of  Baal  extended 
over  the  whole  of  northern  Europe  at  the  time  Pytheas  was 
there,  and  the  people  who  inhabited  Scandinavia  were  of  the 
same  race  as  those  men  whom,  in  much  later  times,  the  Romans 
learnt  to  know  under  the  name  of  Kimbri,  Kelts,  Vandals, 
Goths,  &c.  * 


THE  EARL  Y  NOR  7 If. 


PART  II. 
NORTHMEN  IN  THE  SOUTH. 

Northmen  swarm  Southward. — The  little  that  the  ancients 
have  told  us  of  what  Pytheas  had  written  of  his  travels,  is  all 
that  was  ever  learnt  from  any  traveller's  report  of  northern 
Europe,  until  the  time  of  our  Alfred  the  Great.  Then,  exactly 
two  thousand  years  ago, — for  Alfred  came  to  the  throne  in  the 
year  87 1, — and  twelve  hundred  years  after  the  time  of  Pytheas, 
two  travellers  from  Scandinavia,  named  Wulfstan  and  Ohthere, 
came  to  the  court  of  the  great  English  King,  who  loved  learn- 
ing and  always  welcomed  learned  men.  Alfred  took  great 
pleasure  in  talking  to  them  of  what  they  had  seen,  and  from 
their  account  of  their  travels,  he  composed  a  short  history, 
which,  together  with  a  chart  of  northern  Europe,  he  placed 
at  the  beginning  of  the  translation  which  he  had  made  of 
the  Latin  history  of  Orosius.  The  description  given  by 
King  Alfred  in  this  work  of  Scandinavia  and  northern 
Germany  is,  therefore,  of  extreme  value,  as  it  is  the  only  one, 
on  which  we  can  rely,  that  has  reached  us  from  those  early 
times. 

During  the  twelve  hundred  years  that  separated  the  age  of 
Pytheas  from  that  of  King  Alfred,  nothing  was  to  be  heard  of 
the  lives  and  habits  of  the  people  of  Scandinavia  in  their  own 
homes  ;  although,  from  time  to  time,  tribes  of  half  savage, 
yellow-haired,  blue-eyed,  tall,  strong  Northmen  poured  south- 
ward, and  became  known  to  the  Romans  as  Kimbri,  Teutons, 
Germans  and  Goths.  At  first,  the  fierce  mode  of  attack  used 
by  these  men,  the  loud  and  guttural  shouts  with  which  they 
urged  on  their  horses  in  battle,  and  their  great  strength  and 
unflinching  courage  brought  terror  and  defeat  upon  the 
Roman  soldiers,  who  could  not  break  through  the  long  walls 
of  shields  chained  together,  which  these  unknown  foes  raised 
against  them  ;  but,  after  a  time,  the  Romans,  by  their  superior 
skill  and  discipline,  overcame  them.  In  the  year  101  B.C. 
the  Roman  Consuls,  Marius  and  Catulus,  gave  the  Northmen 


SCANDINA  VI AN  HISTORY. 


battle  and  defeated  them  in  the  plains  of  northern  Italy,  near 
Verona,  where  a  band  of  Kimbri,  accompanied  by  their  wives 
and  children,  were  enjoying  the  charms  of  the  sunny  climate 
and  the  rich  vegetation  of  that  fruitful  district.  While  the  battle 
raged,  the  northern  women  remained  in  their  camp,  defended 
by  the  long  line  of  their  massive  waggons,  but,  when  they 
learned  the  defeat  of  their  husbands,  they  rushed  forth,  and 
uttering  loud  cries  of  grief,  slew  themselves  and  their  children, 
while  the  Romans  carried  away  captive  all  the  Northmen  who 
had  escaped  death  in  the  conflict. 

After  this  great  defeat  at  Verona,  it  was  long  before  the 
Kimbri  were  heard  of  again  so  near  Rome,  but  other  northern 
tribes,  scarcely  less  to  be  dreaded,  kept  up  the  memory  of  their 
valour,  and  disturbed  the  peace  of  the  Roman  frontiers.  Yet 
in  spite  of  their  dread  of  these  unwelcome  strangers,  the 
Romans  took  no  pains  to  discover  the  precise  part  of  the 
world  from  which  they  came ;  and  Latin  writers  for  a  long  time 
gave  the  name  of  "  Scanzia,"  Scandinavia — to  the  whole  of 
northern  Europe,  which,  according  lo  their  notions,  was  either 
one  great  island,  or  a  group  of  many  islands,  lying  in  some 
unknown  sea  beyond  the  Northern  Pillars  of  Herakles,  by 
which  they  meant  to  indicate  the  narrow  channel  between 
Sweden  and  Denmark  known  to  lisas  ••  the  Sound."  Strangely 
enough,  it  was  owing  to  a  whim  of  the  fashionable  ladies  of 
Rome,  that  more  correct  ideas  of  northern  Europe  first 
reached  the  South.  By  chance,  some  strings  of  amber  beads 
had  been  brought  to  Rome,  and  soon  these  ornaments  were  so 
much  admired  that  no  grand  lady  in  the  city  thought  her  dress 
complete  unless  she  had  a  few  rows  of  them,  to  wear  round  her 
neck  or  twist  into  the  plaits  of  her  hair.  In  those  times  it  was 
the  same  in  Rome  as  it  is  now  in  our  great  cities  ;  as  soon  as 
anything  was  wanted  for  which  rich  people  were  willing  to  pay, 
there  were  always  persons  to  be  found  who  would  brave  toil 
and  danger  to  procure  it.  Thus,  then,  when  amber  beads 
became  the  fashion  at  Rome,  Roman  traders  set  forth  in  search 
of  them,  and,  month  after  month,  tracked  their  way  along  the 
great  rivers,  and  through  the  vast  forests  which  then  covered 
Eastern  Europe  till  they  reached  the  shores  of  those  northern 
seas  where,  as  they  had  been  told,  the  waves  threw  up  the 


THE  EARLY  NORTH. 


precious  product,   which   the  Roman   ladies   coveted,   but    of 
whose  nature  they  knew  nothing.1 

By  degrees,  the  accounts  given  by  these  traders,  on  their 
return  to  Rome,  of  the  countries  they  had  visited,  made  the 
Romans  better  acquainted  with  the  true  position  and  nature  of 
the  lands  from  which  those  savage  invaders  had  come,  whose 
attacks  had  more  than  once  threatened  the  safety  of  the  city. 
The  Northmen  themselves  also  helped  to  dispel  the  ignorance 
of  the  southerners,  for,  wherever  they  went,  they  carried  with 
them  poets,  or  reciters,  called  Skalds  in  their  own  tongue,  who 
sang  of  the  glorious  deeds  of  their  forefathers,  and  told 
wonderful  tales  of  the  manner  in  which  they  feasted  and 
sported,  fought  and  vanquished,  in  their  far-distant  homes 
among  the  snow-clad  mountains  and  ice-bound  waters  of  the 
North.  As  these  men  showed  much  readiness  in  learning  other 
languages,  there  is  no  doubt  that,  in  the  course  of  time,  the  tales, 
or  Sagas,  which  they  could  recite,  became  known  to  the  Romans 
and  other  foreigners  amongst  whom  they  lived ;  and  thus  a 
more  correct  knowledge  of  Scandinavia  was,  by  degrees,  spread 
among  the  people  of  southern  Europe. 


PART    III. 

ORIGIN     OF    THE     NORTHMEN. 

German  Origin  of  Northmen. — When  we  go  back  to  the 
oldest  records  of  the  Northmen,  and  hear  what  they  have  to 
bay  of  themselves,  and  compare,  and  correct  their  accounts 
with  what  modern  science  and  research  have  taught  us,  we 
learn  that  the  Northmen  were  a  German  race.  And  we  also 
find  that,  like  all  the  nations  who  now  people  Europe,  they 

1  According  to  one  ancient  myth,  or  fable,  amber  was  formed  from  the 
tears  shed  by  the  sisters  of  Phajthon  when  they  heard  of  his  death.  Before 
it  was  known  that  amber  is  a  resin,  not  unlike  coal  in  its  nature,  the  people 
in  the  Baltic  lands,  where  it  was  found  from  very  ancient  times,  called  it 
meerschaum,  sea-foam,  from  the  idea  that  it  was  the  hardened  scum  of  the 
waves.  The  true  meerschaum,  used  for  pipes,  is  a  naturally  soft,  soapy 
kind  of  earth  or  mineral,  found  near  the  Caspian,  and  in  bcvcial  parts  of 
Russia  and  Turkey. 


lo  SCANDINA  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 

had  come  from  Asia,  and  made  their  way  along  the  eastern 
limits  of  our  continent,  till  they  turned  aside  to  follow  the 
line  of  route  that  each  tribe  chose  for  itself. 

The  special  German  nation  to  whom  the  natives  of  Scan- 
dinavia belong,  was  early  known  as  that  of  the  Goths.  These 
people,  in  very  remote  times — before  they  had  any  written 
history  to  fix  the  date,  had  pushed  their  way  northward  and 
westward  from  th'eir  older  homes  in  the  East,  till  they  reached 
the  shores  of  the  Baltic  and  the  German  Ocean,  where  they 
settled  themselves  upon  the  islands  and  coast  lands  of  those 
seas,  driving  out  the  inhabitants.  Whenever  they  found  them- 
selves strong  enough  to  subdue  the  natives  of  the  country,  they 
made  slaves  of  them,  but  if  they  could  not  do  that,  they 
generally  ended  by  forming  friendly  compacts  with  them. 

It  seems  to  be  certain  that,  when  the  Goths  came  to  the 
Baltic,  they  found  the  lands  peopled  by  older  tribes  of  Kelts, 
Kimri  and  others,  who,  in  their  turn — but  long  before — had  also 
come  from  beyond  the  shores  of  the  Black  Sea.  These  people 
were  now  for  the  most  part  driven  by  the  new-comers  into  the 
more  barren  and  colder  districts,  where  we  still  find  their 
descendants  under  the  names  of  Finns  and  Lapps. 

Some  of  the  old  Finnish  tribes  were  much  braver  than  their 
neighbours,  the  Lapps,  and  could  not  be  so  easily  pushed  aside 
by  the  Goths,  who,  therefore,  were  forced  to  try  to  make  friends 
of  them,  and  to  pay  respect  to  their  gods  and  goddesses.  In 
the  course  of  time  the  most  dreaded  of  these  imaginary  beings 
were  placed  among  their  deities,  and  worshipped  as  much  as 
their  chief  god  Odin  himself.  Other  Finnish  or  Lapp  tribes 
were  held  in  fear  by  the  Goths,  more  perhaps  on  account  of 
their  craft  and  cunning  than  their  bravery,  for  we  find  that  in 
the  Scandinavian  myths  or  sagas,  these  people  are  made  to 
appear,  sometimes  as  giants  of  evil  repute,  and  sometimes  as 
artful,  hideous  dwarfs. 

As  we  have  already  seen,  the  religion  of  Scandinavia  was,  in 
ancient  times,  a  form  of  the  worship  of  Baal,  in  which  the  sun 
and  fire  were  objects  of  great  veneration  as  the  sources  of 
light  and  heat.  But,  after  the  Goths  had  settled  in  northern 
Germany  and  Scandinavia,  this  older  religion  only  lingered  in 
the  form  of  superstitions,  for  the  new-comers  established  their 


THE  EARLY  NORTH. 


own  faith,  which  was  that  of  Woden,  or,  as  he  is  called  by  the 
Northmen,  Odin. 

We  English  retain  in  the  days  of  the  week  the  remembrance 
of  this  religion,  which  was  brought  to  our  shores  more  than 
1400  years  ago  by  the  Angles  and  Saxons,  who  came  from 
northern  Germany  and  western  Denmark  to  give  us  a  new 
name  and  a  new  fate  in  the  world.  The  Angles  and  Jutes  and 
Saxons  who  landed  in  Kent  and  Sussex,  first  taught  the  people 
of  Britain  to  divide  the  week  into  their  Sun-day.  Miwn-day, 
Tys-day  (Ty  being  their  god  of  War  answering  to  the  Mars  of 
the  Romans),  Woden! s- fay t  T/wr's-day  and  Freia!  s- fay. 

Thor,  to  whom  they  dedicated  the  fifth  day  of  the  week,  was 
the  strong  and  brave  son  of  Odin,  or  Woden,  and  a  special 
favourite  among  the  northern  gods,  while  Freia  is  believed, 
by  some,  to  have  been  a  Finnish  goddess  adopted  by  the 
Northmen  as  their  goddess  of  Beauty.1 

Here  we  may  see,  therefore,'  that  we  not  only  retain  the 
memory  of  the  Teutonic,  or  German  gods  of  our  Saxon  fore- 
fathers in  the  names  of  some  of  the  days  of  the  week,  but  that 
we  have  still  amongst  us,  in  the  word  "  Friday,"  something  to 
remind  us  of  that  earlier  form  of  Finnish  worship,  which  the 
common  ancestors  of  the  Saxons  and  Angles  had  found  in 
northern  Europe  when  they  first  settled  there,  and  which  we 
know  to  have  been  a  Phoenician  form  of  religion.  Some  persons 
believe  that  Thor,  from  whom  we  have  taken  our  Thursday, 
was  as  much  an  early  northern  divinity  as  Freia,  and  that  he 
had  been  worshipped  as  the  god  of  thunder,  strength,  and  all 
the  powers  of  nature,  before  the  Gothic  settlers  taught  the  faith 
of  Odin  to  Scandinavia.  Thor  was  the  favourite  god  of  the 
people  of  Norway,  and  even  in  Sweden,  in  the  temple  of  Odin 
at  Uppsala,  his  statue  was  honoured  with  as  high  a  place  as  that 
of  Odin  himself,  but  in  Denmark  he  was  never  so  much 
regarded. 

The  Northern   Gods. — Nothing  certain    is  known   in  regard 

1  The  name  of  Saturday  the  Britons  owed  to  the  Roman  god  Saturn, 
but  the  last  day  of  the  week  was  known  among  the  early  Northmen  as 
washing-day.  It  is  possible  that  our  Anglo-Saxon  forefathers  may  have 
wished  to  change  this  name  when,  in  later  times,  they  had  ceased  to  have 
only  one  washing-day  out  of  the  seven  like  their  northern  ancestors. 


SCANDINA  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 


to  the  precise  time  when  the  Goths  first  came  to  the  north  of 
Europe,  or  when  they  began  to  follow  the  religion  of  Odin. 
Some  persons  have  thought  that  under  the  name  of  Odin,  or 
Woden,  men  worshipped  the  powers  of  nature  ;  others,  that  the 
fables  invented  in  regard  to  him  and  the  other  northern  gods, 
who  were  called  sEsir,  and  were  said  to  have  dwelt  in  a  home 
known  as  Asgaard,  were  all  founded  upon  events  that  had 
happened  to  the  people  before  they  left  their  distant  homes 
in  the  far  East.  Perhaps  both  these  sources,  and  others  besides, 
helped  to  make  up  the  mythology  of  the  Northmen.  On  the 
whole,  the  true  worshippers  of  Odin  held  a  moral  faith.  They 
believed  that  the  first  duty  of  mortals  was  to  fear  and  love  the 
All-father,  or  Creator,  and  that  the  next  was  to  love  and  cherish 
their  kindred  and  the  friends  to  whom  they  had  sworn  to  be 
faithful.  But  they  did  not  see  any  virtue  in  forgiving  the  guilty 
or  sparing  the  innocent,  if  they  had  any  wrongs  to  avenge. 
When  a  man  was  slain  in  combat  with  a  private  foe,  his  kindred 
felt  bound  to  take  vengeance  on  the  slayer,  and  to  kill  him  and 
as  many  of  his  relations  as  they  could  ;  and  if  they  were  unable 
to  do  it  in  any  other  way,  they  thought  it  quite  fair  to  attack 
them  by  night,  and  either  slay  them  or  burn  them  alive  in  their 
houses.  This  act,  which  they  called  neina  Jn'is  a  c!nn:  "  to  take 
a  house  from  one,"  was  not  to  be  performed,  however,  until  all 
the  women,  children,  old  people  and  slaves  had  been  allowed 
to  make  their  escape.  So,  even  in  their  worst  deeds,  they 
showed  some  mercy  to  the  feeble,  and  proved  that  they  wert- 
not  without  a  natural  sense  of  justice. 

Odin-Al-fad'ir. — In  Odin,  the  Northmen  worshipped  the  Alfadir. 
or  Father  of  all  men  and  all  things — the  Creator.  They  believed 
that  he  knew  all  things,  and,  in  his  character  of  All-father,  would 
survive,  when  this  earth  and  all  the  lesser  gods,  or  yEsir,  had 
been  swallowed  up  by  time,  to  be  regenerated  according  to  the 
good  or  the  evil  that  was  in  their  nature  ;  for  the  religion  of 
Odin  taught  that  the  good  would  dwell  in  Chn/i,  or  the  golden, 
and  the  evil  be  doomed  with  cowards,  liars,  and  deceivers, 
to  remain  in  Nastroend,  the  low  strand,  in  a  dwelling  made 
of  serpents'  bones.  Before  this  final  judgment,  Odin  was 
believed  to  look  down  on  earth  from  his  seat  in  Yalaskjdlf. 
learning  all  that  happens  there  and  in  heaven  from  his  ravens, 


THE  EARL  Y  NOR  777.  1 3 

who  sit  one  on  either  side  of  his  head  and  whisper  into  his 
ear.  In  the  hall,  Valhal,  with  its  five  hundred  and  forty  gates, 
each  wide  enough  to  admit  eight  hundred  men  abreast,  he 
received  all  brave  and  good  men  after  their  death,  and  there 
the  slain  warriors  pursued  the  life  they  had  loved  best  on  earth, 
fought  their  battles  over  again,  listened  to  the  songs  of  past 
victories,  and  feasted  together  without  sorrow  or  pain  to  disturb 
them.  Odin  was  supposed  to  award  his  special  favours  to  those 
warriors  who  brought  gold,  or  other  precious  substances,  with 
them  to  Valhal,  and  who  had  led  an  active  life  and  wandered 
far  and  wide  ;  hence  the  Northmen  very  early  showed  the 
greatest  eagerness  to  gather  together  riches  on  their  distant 
voyages.  This  was  not  so  much  for  the  sake  of  spending  their 
wealth,  as  in  the  hope  of  securing  a  welcome  from  the  god 
whenever  they  might  have  to  appear  in  his  presence.  They 
often  ordered  their  children,  or  followers,  on  pain  of  severe 
punishment  after  death  if  they  disobeyed  them,  to  bury  their 
riches  with  them ;  or  they  hid  them  away  in  places,  known  only 
to  themselves,  under  the  idea  that  Odin,  who  saw  everything 
that  passed  on  earth,  would  approve  of  their  deed  and  reward 
them  accordingly. 


PART   IV. 

THE     ARYAN     RACES. 

Northern  Tongue. — The  Gothic  tribes  who  settled  in  Scan- 
dinavia brought  their  own  language,  as  well  as  their  own 
religion,  with  them.  In  the  course  of  time  this  came  to  be 
known — first,  as  Norrcena  Mdl,  or  Northern  speech,  and  next  as 
Donsk  tiuiga,  or  Danish  tongue — which  shows  that  at  one 
period  the  Danes  were  the  chief  people  among  the  Scandinavian 
nations,  or  they  would  hardly  have  given  their  name  to  the 
common  language  of  all  the  Northmen. 

But  before  the  Germans  and  Goths  parted  from  the  many 
other  tribes  who,  like  themselves,  had  come  into  Europe  from 
one  common  home  in  Asia,  they  had  also  had  one  common 


14  SCANDINA  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 

language,  for  they  were  all  of  one  race,  which  we  call  Aryan, 
from  Arya  or  Iran,  the  old  name  of  Persia,  and  sometimes 
Indo-European,  to  distinguish  it  from  the  other  great  branch  of 
nations,  known  as  the  Semitic,  to  which  the  Hebrews,  Egyp- 
tians, and  many  other  ancient  peoples  belong.  Our  own  and 
nearly  all  the  present  nations  of  Europe  and  some  of  the 
people  of  Asia  are  descended  from  the  Aryan  stock,  and,  in 
times  so  long  past  that  there  is  no  certain  record  of  their  date, 
our  common  forefathers  lived  together  in  their  Asiatic  valley- 
homes  beyond  the  Black  Sea,  and  spoke  a  language  which  was 
perhaps  more  like  the  present  Indian  written  language,  Sans- 
krit, than  any  other  that  we  know  of.  But  when  these  Aryan 
races  began  to  wander  westward  in  search  of  new  homes  and 
came  into  Europe,  they  separated  into  different  nations,  and  by 
degrees  came  to  speak  different  dialects,  until  at  last  distinct 
languages  were  formed  among  them,  which  varied  so  much 
from  one  another,  that  it  requires  great  learning  to  be  able  to 
trace  them  back  to  one  common  tongue. 

Perhaps  climate  had  something  to  do  with  the  changes  which 
crept  into  the  speech  of  the  Aryan  nations  as  they  advanced 
into  different  parts  of  Europe ;  for,  as  we  know,  all  southern 
nations  speak  much  more  softly  than  do  people  in  northern 
countries.  We  cannot  now  decide  whether  our  Aryan  fore- 
fathers brought  with  them  from  the  East  the  guttural  sounds  of 
the  northern  tongue,  or  caught  them  up  after  they  had  reached 
Scandinavia,  and  become  affected  by  its  climate.  All  that  we 
can  now  say  decidedly  in  regard  to  the  Norrccna  J/<//  is,  that  we 
know  how  it  was  spoken  by  the  Northmen,  one  thousand  years 
ago,  for  then  a  number  of  Norwegians  went  to  Iceland,  where 
they  made  new  homes  for  themselves,  keeping,  however,  to 
their  old  religion  and  their  mother-tongue.  Since  that  time 
the  Scandinavians  at  home  have  altered  their  modes  of  speech  so 
much,  that  a  Swede,  a  Norwegian,  or  a  Dane,  can  no  longer 
understand  the  language  still  spoken  by  the  Icelanders,  which 
has  remained  unchanged  for  a  thousand  years. 

Runes. — The  letters  used  by  the  Northmen  were  called  runes, 
from  run,  a  secret.  There  were  sixteen  of  these  runes,  of  which 
each  was  the  sign  for  several  sounds  as  well  as  words.  They 
were  either  carved  on  wooden  staves,  or  cut  into  stone,  and 


THE  EARL  Y  NOR TH.  \  5 

were  much  used  by  persons  pretending  to  deal  in  magic.  As 
they  were  alike  difficult  to  form  and  to  read  when  formed,  it 
was  only  the  learned  who  were  able  to  employ  them  to  convey 
messages ;  but  as  the  same  runes  were  used  by  all  the  early 
Scandinavian  people,  they  formed  a  means  of  maintaining  in- 
tercourse between  the  various  branches  of  the  great  northern 
stock.  Thus  we  are  told  that,  during  the  eighth  and  ninth 
centuries,  when  the  Northmen  had  extended  their  power  over 
so  many  parts  of  Europe,  letters  written  in  runes  were  fre- 
quently sent  from  one  prince  to  another,  and  could  be  equally 
well  read  at  Anglo-Saxon,  Prankish,  Gothic,  Russian,  and 
Scandinavian  courts.  Even  in  the  East,  at  Constantinople, 
there  were  many  men  in  the  imperial  palace,  well  versed  in 
runes,  and  eager  to  welcome  the  northern  skalds,  who  were 
able  to  recite  to  them  the  sagas  of  Scandinavia.  This  was 
owing  to  the  fact  that  the  body-guards  of  the  Emperors,  known 
as  Vceringjar,  or  wanderers,  were  Northmen,  who,  although 
often  of  noble  birth,  had  been  tempted  by  their  love  of  roaming 
and  the  prospect  of  gain  to  take  service  in  ancient  Byzantium, 
where  for  centuries  they  formed  the  only  trustworthy  defenders 
of  the  lives  and  freedom  of  the  inmates  of  the  imperial  palace. 
In  Russia,  too,  the  Northmen  had  formed  important  settle- 
ments in  the  ninth  century,  and  had  made  themselves  princes 
in  the  land  ;  and  by  the  intermarriage  of  these  conquerors 
with  the  Slavi,  or  original  inhabitants,  a  race  sprang  up,  from 
which  have  descended  the  Czars  of  Russia  and  many  of  the 
leading  families  of  the  Russian  empire. 

Vikingar. — The  Northmen  were  such  a  wandering,  restless 
race  of  people,  that  from  the  latter  times  of  the  Roman  Republic 
till  very  nearly  the  days  of  our  William  the  Conqueror,  who 
was  himself  of  direct  Scandinavian  descent,  they  were  always 
swarming  southward  from  their  northern  hives,  like  so  many 
hungry  bees,  ever  eager  to  settle  on  the  first  pleasant  spot  that 
seemed  to  offer  them  the  food  and  shelter  which  they  sought ; 
and  ready,  like  those  busy  insects,  to  throw  off  fresh  broods 
whenever  the  new  hives  grew  too  crowded  for  them.  Tribe 
after  tribe  appeared  every  year  with  the  return  of  warm  weather  ; 
and  when  the  Roman  empire  had  ceased  to  exist,  and  Charle- 
magne had  formed  a  new  empire  in  Europe,  these  ancient  foes 


1 6  SC AND  IN  A  VI AN  //AS  TO  K  Y. 


of  Rome,  under  other  names  perhaps,  but  with  the  same  spirit 
as  of  old,  hung  upon  every  frontier,  and  attempted  to  penetrate 
into  the  interior  through  every  stream  and  river  that  opened  a 
way  to  pillage.  In  the  later  times  of  their  wanderings,  the 
leaders  among  the  Northmen  were  known  as  Viki/igar,  a  name 
derived  from  vik,  a  bay,  from  the  habit  which  these  men  had  of 
lying  under  covert  in  some  little  bay,  or  vik,  and  darting  out  in 
their  barks  to  waylay  and  plunder  any  vessel  passing  by.  The 
art  of  coming  unawares  upon  others,  whether  singly  or  with  a 
large  fleet,  was  for  this  reason  known  as  a  "  viking."  After  a 
time  these  vikingar  joined  themselves  into  bands,  and  went  forth 
in  well-manned  flotillas  of  small  vessels,  or  rowing-boats,  to 
attack  foreign  shores.  After  roaming  over  the  seas  from  spring 
to  autumn,  they  returned  to  their  northern  homes  before  the 
frost  closed  the  harbours,  and  spent  their  winters  in  feasting 
and  in  athletic  sports,  or  in  preparing  their  shattered  barks 
for  future  viking  cruises  But  faithful  to  the  precepts  of  their 
religion,  they  never  failed  to  offer  sacrifices  and  gifts  to  Odin, 
and  their  favourite  gods,  in  gratitude  for  past  favours,  and  in 
the  earnest  hope  of  securing,  by  these  acts  of  devotion,  a  rich 
harvest  of  spoil  for  their  next  voyage. 


CHAPTER    If. 


THE     DANES     IN     EARLY     TIMES. 


The  homes  of  the  Northmen,  who  first  came  to  Britain — The  names  of  the 
Danish  provinces — Saxo  Grammaticus,  the  writer  on  old  Danish  histoiy 
— King  Dan,  the  so-called  founder  of  the  Danish  monarchy  ;  what  was 
done  to  his  body  after  death — King  Frode,  his  golden  bracelets,  which 
served  as  his  money-bank — Stccrkodder,  and  who  alone  could  kill 
him — Rolf  Krake,  the  slim  and  handsome  ;  his  Berserkers,  and  why 
they  were  so  called — The  battle  of  Bravalla —  Odin's  last  appearance 
on  earth — How  the  god  gave  the  victory  to  the  Swedish  king,  and 
killed  the  Danish  monarch  Harald  with  his  own  battle-axe — Regner 
Lodbrog,  why  he  wore  leather  leggings,  how  he  died,  and  what 
vengeance  his  sons  took  on  his  slayer — King  ^illa  of  Northumbria 
- — The  torture  of  the  "  Spread  Eagle" — The  victories  of  King  Alfred 
the  Great — The  Northern  sea-rovers  driven  out  of  England — The  little 
we  know  of  the  Danes  in  their  own  country  a  thousand  years  ago. 


PART  I. 
THE  NORTHMEN  AT  HOME. 

Our  Interest  in  tlic  NortJunen.—\^,  the  former  chapter  we 
have  seen  that  the  north  of  Europe  was  left  almost  unvisited 
and  certainly  undescribed  by  foreigners,  as  far  as  we  know, 
from  the  age  of  Alexander  the  Great  of  Macedon — more  than  300 
years  B.C. — to  that  of  Alfred  the  Great  of  England,  nearly  900 
years  after  the  birth  of  Christ.  In  the  present  chapter  we  shall 
have  to  see  by  what  means  the  people  of  our  own  and  other  lands 
became  acquainted  with  the  Northmen ;  and  beginning  with 
the  Danes  as  the  nation  best  known  to  ourselves,  we  \vill  take 
a  glance  at  their  country,  and  pass  on  to  the  accounts  given  of 

c 


1 8  SC AND  IN  A  VI AN  HIS  TOR  Y. 

them  in  early  times  by  their  own  historians.  The  Northmen 
who  had  carried  on  wars  in  Southern  Europe  against  the  Roman 
empire,  and  on  its  decline  had  formed  kingdoms  for  them- 
selves, either  as  Goths,  Vandals,  or  others,  regarded  themselves 
as  one  nation  descended  from  the  same  common  stock,  and 
were  governed  by  the  same  laws  and  customs.  In  later  Christian 
times,  too,  when  northern  invackrs  poured  like  a  devastating 
flood  over  middle  and  southern  Europe ;  although  they  bore  the 
names  of  Danes,  Swedes,  Norwegians,  Jutes,  Saxons,  and 
Angles,  they  all  traced  their  origin  back  to  the  same  sources, 
and  followed  very  nearly  the  same  laws  and  religion.  This 
identity  of  origin  and  habits  among  the  Northmen  of  old  makes 
it  thus  ail  the  more  interesting  and  necessary  for  us  to  acquaint 
ourselves  with  the  home-lives  of  the  Scandinavians,  since  we 
retain  to  the  present  day  deep  traces  in  our  laws,  usages,  and 
perhaps  even  in  our  character,  of  the  influence  of  our  Anglo- 
Saxon  forefathers,  whose  arrival  in  Britain  more  than  1,400 
years  ago  was  the  true  beginning  of  our  national  life.  When 
we  bear  in  mind  the  love  of  roaming  shown  from  the  earliest 
times  by  the  Northmen,  and  their  bold  habit  of  pushing  off  to 
sea  on  the  return  of  each  spring,  to  seek  out  some  richer  lands 
than  their  own,  we  need  not  wonder  that  they  should  have 
found  their  way  to  Britain.  We  know,  too,  that  after  the 
Romans  left  our  island,  in  the  year  401,  the  Britons  were  so 
timid  and  weak  that  they  could  not  defend  themselves  against 
the  Picts  and  Scots.  They  were  not  likely,  therefore,  to  make 
any  very  strong  defence  against  the  fierce  Northmen.  But 
according  to  the  accounts  written  down  long  afterwards  by  the 
monk  Gildas  and  others,  the  Northmen  came  to  Britain,  not 
only  because  they  loved  roaming  about  and  robbing  their  richer 
fellow-men,  but  because  some  of  the  British  princes,  or  chiefs, 
had  sent  to  them  to  beg  that  they  would  come  and  protect 
them  against  their  Scottish  and  Pictish  neighbours.  This  is 
said  to  have  happened  about  the  middle  of  the  fifth  century, 
and  if  it  was  really  the  reason  why  the  Northmen  came  to 
Britain,  the  Britons  must  soon  have  regretted  what  they  had 
done  ;  for  before  many  years  had  passed,  the  Angles,  Jutes, 
and  Saxons  had  poured  into  Britain  in  such  large  numbers  that 
they  had  found  themselves  strong  enough  to  drive  the  natives 


THE  DANES  IN  EARLY  TIMES.  19 

back  into  the  mountains  a»d  waste  parts,  and  to  set  themselves 
up  as  masters  and  rulers  in  almost  every  part  of  the  island. 

The  Jutes  founded  a  kingdom  in  Kent  as  early  as  449,  but 
they  did  not  go  on  spreading  themselves  over  Britain  as  fast  as 
the  Angles  and  Saxons.  The  last-named  of  these  tribes  appear 
to  have  been  the  first  to  settle  in  England,  but  they  were  soon 
followed  by  the  Angles,  who  came  in  such  numbers,  that  their 
own  country,  Angeln,  was  left  almost  without  inhabitants.  This 
small  district,  from  which  we  Englishmen  have  taken  our  name, 
was  a  fruitful  strip  of  land,  stretching  from  the  site  of  the  present 
town  of  Flensborg  in  Slesvig  to  the  fjord,  or  inlet  of  the  Slie, 
and  lying  to  the  south  of  the  land  of  the  Jutes,  since  known  as 
Jutland. 

Chtrsoncsus  Cimbrica. — The  Romans  gave  the  name  Chcrso- 
nesus  Cimbrica  to  the  whole  of  that  north-western  extremity  of 
Germany  which  lies  north  of  the  Elbe,  and  which  included  the 
ancient  homes  of  the  Jutes  and  Angles,  but  the  Northmen 
themselves  called  it  Reid-Gotaland,  or  the  Firm  (Continental) 
Goth's  land,  while  they  gave  the  name  Ey-Gotaland,  "  Insular 
Goth's  land,"  to  all  the  Danish  islands  between  the  old  Cimbric 
Chersonesus  and  the  coasts  of  Sweden.  These  names  confirm 
to  us  the  fact  of  which  we  have  already  spoken,  that  the  Danes, 
like  all  the  other  northern  people,  belonged  to  those  Teuton 
or  German  tribes  who  were  known  as  "  Goths."  The  Saxons 
lived  near  the  Angles,  but  mostly  on  the  south  side  of  the  Elbe, 
and  along  the  neighbouring  German  sea-coast ;  and  these  two 
nations,  with  the  Jutes,  spoke  one  and  the  same  northern  tongue, 
when  they  came  into  Britain,  although  perhaps  with  certain  un- 
important differences. 

When  the  land  of  Angeln  was  left  after  the  great  immigration 
of  the  people  into  Britain,  Jutes  from  the  North,  and  Goths 
from  the  Danish  islands,  flocked  into  the  deserted  country  and 
made  themselves  masters  of  it.  Considering  the  few  men  left 
in  it,  this  was  no  great  feat,  but,  being  fond  of  boasting,  the 
new-comers  called  themselves  the  Conquerors  of  the  land,  while 
their  skalds  composed,  in  honour  of  this  pretended  conquest, 
songs  and  sagas,  which  were  handed  down  from  one  generation 
to  another.  In  the  course  of  time  these  boastful  tales  came  to 
be  believed  in  as  if  they  gave  only  the  true  account  of  the 

c  2 


SCANDINA  VI AN  I11STOR  Y. 


manner  in  which  the  Jutes  and  the  men  of  the  islands  had 
made  themselves  masters  of  the  whole  country,  from  the 
extreme  north  of  Reid-Gotaland  down  to  the  lands  of  the 
Saxons. 

These  Jutes  and  Danish  Goths  soon  formed  a  number  of 
small  states  or  kingdoms,  ruled  over  by  chiefs  who  were  very  aptly 
called  "  Smaa-koiigar"  or  small  kings,  as  they  had  often  no  larger 
realm  to  boast  of  than  the  ground  on  which  they  and  their  few  fol- 
lowers lay  encamped,  or  the  strand  on  which  their  boats  were 
moored.  The  northern  name  for  king,  kotrungr,  was  made  up 
of  the  two  words,  konr,  kind  or  family,  and  u?igr,  youth,  and 
in  its  earliest  sense  meant  simply  a  young  chief  of  good  birth ; 
and  we  must,  therefore,  regard  the  many  Danish  kings  of  whom 
we  hear  in  early  English  and  Prankish  history,  as  only  leaders 
of  small  bands  of  Vikingar,  or  sea-rovers.  By  degrees  all  Scan- 
dinavia was  split  up  into  these  small  states,  with  Smaa-kongar 
at  their  head,  who  ruled  without  any  regard  to  each  other. 
Petty  wars  and  changes  of  rule  must  have  been  very  common 
in  this  state  of  things ;  but  as  the  different  branches  of  the 
Danes  themselves  hardly  knew  anything  of  each  other  in  those 
ages,  it  is  quite  impossible,  at  this  distance  of  time,  for  us  to 
learn  very  much  of  the  history  of  the  people.  During  the  fifth 
and  sixth  centuries,  Danes  from  the  larger  islands,  and  Frisians 
from  the  smaller  islands  of  the  northern  seas,  often  pillaged  the 
coasts  of  the  Frankish  lands,  advancing  boldly  into  the  interior 
by  means  of  the  rivers,  and  carrying  away  with  them  as  many 
captives  and  as  much  booty  as  their  barks  would  hold.  The 
chroniclers  speak  of  these  invaders  as  the  scourge  and  torment 
of  the  poor  inhabitants,  but  they  cannot  tell  us  more  of  the 
country  whence  they  came  than  that  it  was  somewhere  to  the 
north  of  their  own.  It  was  not  till  the  eighth  century  that  the 
Frankisli  writers  of  annals  knew  that  there  were  lands  north  of 
the  Mbe ;  and  long  after  the  victories  of  Charlemagne  in 
Northern  Germany  had  made  known  the  name  of  the  Danes, 
the  Franks  remained  in  ignorance  of  the  fact  that  there  were 
any  people  of  the  race  except  those  living  in  the  lands  of 
Slesvig  and  in  Jutland. 

Ucfore  Charlemagne  was  crowned  Fmperor  of  the  West,  and 
when  he  was   only  plain.  King  Charles   of  the    Frankish   ten;- 


THE  DANES  IN  EARL  Y  TIMES. 


tories,  he  had  carried  on  a  war  against  the  Saxons,  which  lasted 
thirty  years,  and  ended  in  the  year  777,  after  much  hard 
fighting,  in  making  the  Saxon  tribes  submit  to  him  and  receive 
baptism.  But  Wittekind,  their  chief,  although  he  knew  that 
his  people  had  been  beaten,  and  could  never  hope  to  regain 
their  old  freedom,  would  not  declare  himself  a  Christian  ;  and, 
fleeing  in  all  haste,  he  took  refuge  with  his  friend,  Siegfred,  a 
king  in  Jutland,  who  like  himself  was  a  heathen,  and  wor- 
shipped Odin,  or  Woden.  With  him  Wittekind  remained  safe 
for  many  years,  only  coming  forth  from  his  place  of  retreat  to 
attack  the  Frankish  troops,  until  at  length,  wearied-out  with  the 
hopeless  struggle,  he  allowed  himself  to  be  signed  with  the  cross 
in  the  year  785,  and  renounced  paganism. 

The  Danes  of  Jutland  and  the  Isles.— To  these  events  we  owe 
the  first  notice  of  the  continental  Danes  by  the  Frankish  writers 
of  those  times,  who  felt  no  little  surprise  that  there  should  be 
heathen  kings  near  their  own  frontiers,  strong  enough  to  shield 
the  foes  of  their  great  ruler,  and  defy  the  power  of  the  Christians. 
But  while  the  Franks  thus  learnt  to  know  the  Danes  of  Jutland, 
the  people  of  England  were  also  beginning  to  be  harassed  by 
Danish  vikingar,  whom  they  called  Osimanni,  or  East-men, 
from  the  direction  whence  they  had  come.  The  Anglo-Saxon 
race  that  had  sprung  up  in  Britain,  while  they  retained  northern 
customs  and  followed  northern  laws  and  usages,  keeping  up 
through  their  superstitions  the  memory  of  the  old  worship  of 
Odin  even  after  their  conversion  to  Christianity,  seem  to  have 
ceased  to  care  for  the  ancient  homes  of  their  forefathers,  and 
to  have  lost  all  knowledge  of  the  Reid-Gotaland,  from  which 
they  had  taken  their  origin,  and  to  which  many  of  the  later 
Danish  invaders  of  England  must  have  belonged.  Thus,  while 
the  Franks  thought  all  Danes  came  from  North-Elbian  lands, 
the  Anglo-Saxons  believed  they  were  all  islanders. 

These  two  branches  of  the  Danish  stock  appear  for  a  long 
time  to  have  been  nearly  as  ignorant  as  foreigners  in  regard  to 
their  respective  histories.  Each  regarded  themselves  as  the 
chief  people  of  the  country,  and  each  cherished  a  rich  store  of 
national  tales,  setting  forth  the  power  and  glory  of  their  kings, 
and  claiming  for  them  direct  descent  from  Odin.  Lejre,  or 
Ledra,  in  the  island  of  Sjselland,  was  the  chief  seat  of  the  power 


SCANDINAVIAN  HISTORY. 


of  the  eastern  Danes,  and  the  kings  who  ruled  there  were  cer- 
tainly among  the  most  renowned  of  the  ancient  royal  heroes  of 
Denmark ;  but,  at  the  same  time,  there  must  have  been  kings 
of  some  importance  among  the  western  Danes,  as  their  sagas 
were  equally  full  of  the  exploits  of  kings  ruling  over  the 
Jutlanders.  It  is  probable  that  these  two  Danish  branches, 
before  they  were  united  into  one  nation  and  brought  under  one 
ruler,  were  entirely  independent  of  each  other,  and  lived  under 
Smaa-kongar,  who  were  perhaps,  in  some  way,  tributary  to  a 
few  greater  rulers,  of  whom  the  King  of  Lejre  was  the  chief 
in  the  islands  ;  but  we  do  not  know  where  the  head-kings  in 
Jutland  kept  their  court.1 


PART    II. 

DENMARK. 

Position  of  Denmark.- — Before  we  begin  to  discuss  the  history 
of  Denmark,  we  must  turn  to  the  map  of  Europe  and  note  the 
position  of  the  lands  occupied  by  the  insular  and  the  continental 
Danes,  which,  at  a  later  period,  were  joined  into  one  kingdom. 
The  Reid-Gotaland  of  the  Northmen — that  is,  the  territories  of 
the  western  or  continental  Danes,  were  included  in  the  long, 
narrow  strip  of  land  which  runs  almost  due  north  from  the 
mouths  of  the  Elbe  to  about  57°  45'  N.  lat.,  where  it  terminates, 
at  the  extremity  of  Jutland,  in  a  sharp  point  of  land  known 
as  the  Skjge.  This  horn-like  projection  of  the  German  con- 
tinent, which  separates  the  German  Ocean  from  the  Cattegat 
and  the  smaller  channels  of  the  Baltic,  was  the  Chersonesus 
Cimhrica  of  the  Romans,  and  now  includes  Holstein,  Slesvi-g, 
and  Jutland.  The  Ky-Gotaland  of  the  Northmen,  which  was 

'The  Danes  have  retained  very  few  of  the  traditions  of  Jutland,  and  their 
skalds  have,  in  general,  chosen  the  subjects  of  their  songs  from  the  talcs  and 
s.'gns  of  the  islands.  It  is  believed  thai  the  story  of  Amlct,  immortalized 
by  Shakespeare  under  the  name  of  Hamlet,  is  founded  upon  some  saga 
referring  to  a  Jntish  prince,  although,  as  \ve  kno\v,  the  scene  is  laid  at 
Klsinore,  in  Sj:clland.  There  is  no  trace  of  sue!)  a  story  in  connection  will; 
any  prince  of  the  Kastern  Danes. 


THE  DANES  IN  EARL  Y  TIMES.  23 

occupied  by  the  eastern  or  insular  Danes  of  later  times,  is 
composed  of  that  group  of  islands  between  Sweden  and  con- 
tinental Denmark  which  we  know  under  the  names  of  Siselland, 
Funen  or  Fyen,  Laaland,  Falster,  Langeland,  &c.  In  early 
times  the  provinces  of  Skaania  and  Bleking,  on  the  eastern 
or  Swedish  side  of  the  Sound,  formed  part  of  the  Danish 
monarchy;  and  for  many  ages  after  the  introduction  of  Chris- 
tianity, Lund,  the  chief  town  of  Skaania,  was  the  see  of  the 
primate  of  Denmark. 

The  names  of  almost  every  island  or  province  of  Denmark 
told  the  character  of  the  country.  Thus,  the  name  of  Denmark 
meaning  the  darkly-wooded  land,  reveals  the  fact  that  once 
the  land  was  densely  covered  with  sombre  firs.  Skaania  took 
its  name  from  its  numerous  moors  and  morasses,  skaun  being  a 
moor,  in  old  Northern  •  Blecking,  which  lies  along  the  sea,  from 
blek,  a  smooth  beach;  Laaland,  from  lav,  low;  Sjselland,  from 
sjos  or  soe,  the  sea ;  Langeland,  from  lange,  long — all  these  names 
thus  showing  either  the  nature  or  position  of  the  land. 

Although  the  north  of  Europe  remained  for  so  many  ages 
wrapped  in  darkness  as  far  as  the  rest  of  the  world  was  con- 
cerned, the  people  of  Scandinavia  were  early  in  possession  of 
an  immense  number  of  tales,  or  sagas,  as  they  were  called,  which 
pretended  to  give  true  accounts  of  their  great  kings,  vikingar, 
and  heroes  from  the  first  settlement  of  their  forefathers  in  the 
north.  The  sagas  handed  down  by  Danish  skalds  from  one 
generation  to  another,  in  very  early  times,  have  reached  us  in  a 
more  genuine  form,  perhaps,  than  those  of  the  Swedes  and  Nor- 
wegians, because  all  the  popular  tales  that  could  be  collected  in 
Denmark  in  the  twelfth  century  were  then  carefully  written 
down,  and  have  since  been  preserved  and  put  into  modern 
Danish.  Denmark  owes  the  preservation  of  these  curious  tales 
of  old  to  a  pious  monk,  Saxo,  surnarned  Grammaticus,  from  his 
being  well  versed  in  the  knowledge  of  the  Latin  language  or 
grammar.  Saxo  and  his  friend,  Svend  Aagesen,  were  en- 
couraged by  their  patron,  Absalon,  primate  of  Denmark  under 
the  Valdemars,  to  complete  a  history  of  their  native  country, 
and  to  collect  and  write  out  for  that  purpose  all  the  songs  and 
tales  that  were  still  remembered  by  the  older  people.  They 
lived  for  many  years  in  the  monastery  of  Soro,  near  the  pre- 


24  SCANDINA  VI AN  HISTORY. 

sent  city  of  Copenhagen,  and  when  Saxo  died,  in  1204,  that  is, 
about  five  years  after  our  King  John  had  succeeded  his  brother 
Richard  I.  on  the  throne  of  England,  he  left  a  complete  history 
of  Denmark,  carried  down  to  his  own  times,  and  professing  to 
relate  the  origin  of  the  kingdom,  and  to  give  an  account  of  all 
the  kings  who  had  ruled  over  the  Danes.  As,  however,  we  find 
long  lists  of  the  names  of  princes  said  to  have  been  great  and 
powerful  for  ages  before  the  birth  of  Christ,  we  cannot  put  much 
trust  in  these  records  of  ancient  Danish  rulers.  Saxo's  history 
is  written  in  Latin  and  composed  of  sixteen  parts,  or  books,  the 
first  nine  of  which  contain  little  more  than  popular  traditions. 
These,  however,  are  so  far  interesting  that  they  give  us  a  record 
of  what  the  Danes  themselves  accepted  as  their  earlier  history  in 
the  days  when  Saxo  wrote,  and  on  that  account,  as  well  as  be- 
cause many  of  the  heroes  or  demigods,  of  whom  the  old  monk 
of  Sord  had  such  wonderful  things  to  tell  us,  are  constantly 
referred  to  in  Danish  literature,  we  must  not  pass  them  wholly 
by  without  notice. 

Dan  the  Famous. — According  to  Saxo,  Denmark  takes  its 
name  from  Dan  Mykillati,  or  the  Famous,  who  taught  the  people 
many  useful  arts,  and  made  all  the  small  kings  around  tributary 
to  him.  His  last  directions  were  that,  after  death,  his  remains 
should  not  be  burnt,  as  had  always  been  done  in  olden  times. 
Accordingly,  when  he  died,  his  people  built  a  great  stone  cham 
ber,  in  which  they  laid  his  body  together  with  his  most  costly 
arms,  and  after  killing  his  favourite  horse  anil  placing  it  fully 
harnessed  by  his  side,  they  closed  the  opening  and  raised  a 
high  mound  over  the  whole.  This  Dan,  we  are  told,  was  fol- 
lowed by  a  long  line  of  descendants,  until,  after  many  ages,  there 
ruled  a  king,  known  as  Frode,  "  the  Peaceful,"  because  in  his 
time  peace  and  plenty  prevailed  in  the  north.  This  golden 
age  was  owing  to  the  birth  of  the  Saviour,  which,  according  to 
the  legend,  took  place  during  the  time  of  Frode,  in  whose  reign 
there  was  neither  wrong  nor  want,  nor  were  there  thieves  or 
beggars,  so  that  the  good  King  Frode  could  leave  his  golden 
armlets  on  the  wayside,  as  he  journeyed  through  his  kingdom  to 
l.ear  and  make  right  all  causes  of  dispute  among  his  people, 
and  no  man  would  steal  or  injure  his  property.  As  these  arm- 
lets were  to  the  wearer  a  kind  of  bank,  or  treasury,  men  must 


THE  DANES  IN  EARLY  TIMES.  25 

have  been  very  honest  not  to  have  taken  them  ;  for,  since  they 
could  be  broken  up,  or  divided  into  links  and  rings  to  be  used 
instead  of  money,  it  would  not  have  been  easy  to  detect  the 
thief.  In  those  days  there  was  very  little  money  in  the  shape 
of  coins,  and  so  men  were  obliged  to  carry  their  gold  and  silver 
about  with  them  in  the  form  of  rings  or  bands  for  the  head, 
arms,  or  legs,  and  twist,  or  break  off  bit  by  bit,  as  they  wanted  to 
pay,  or  give  away  any  of  the  precious  metals. 

Stoerkodder. — King  Frode,  in  spite  of  his  name  of  Peaceful,  is 
said  to  have  subdued  two  hundred  and  twenty  foreign  kings, 
and  ruled  over  all  the  lands  between  Russia  and  the  Rhine. 
But  great  as  he  was,  according  to  Saxo's  account  of  him,  which 
fills  one  book  of  the  Danish  history,  his  fame  is  far  exceeded  by 
that  of  the  great  northern  Herakles,  Stcerkodder,  who  had  giant 
forefathers,  and  was  so  hugely  big  and  brave  and  strong,  that  it 
was  almost  impossible  for  any  one  to  contend  with  him.  In- 
deed, according  to  the  legend,  he  never  would  have  been  over- 
come even  after  old  age  had  lessened  his  strength,  had  he  not 
in  early  life  slain  his  friend  and  brother-in-arms,  the  brave 
Mother,  by  treachery.  The  remembrance  of  this  act  weakened 
his  arm  when,  in  later  years,  the  son  of  the  murdered  man  at- 
tacked him,  and,  being  unable  to  defend  himself,  he  soon  fell 
beneath  the  blows  of  his  foeman.  This  hero  is  rather  a  demi- 
god than  a  mortal,  for  he  is  heard  of  again  and  again  in  northern 
history,  for  nearly  three  hundred  years,  and  he  only  disappears 
after  the  battle  of  Bravalla,  in  which,  as  we  shall  presently  see, 
Odin  revealed  himself  for  the  last  time  to  the  eyes  of  mortals. 

While  Stcerkodder  may  be  regarded  as  the  Herakles  of  the 
North,  Rolf  Krake  ranks  as  a  model  of  all  the  kingly  virtues 
esteemed  in  ancient  times,  and  as  a  pattern  of  royal  generosity 
and  dignity.  This  king  is  believed  to  have  been  killed  about 
the  year  600,  or  very  nearly  at  the  time  when  Christianity  was 
being  first  preached  in  England  by  Saint  Augustine.  His  valour, 
goodness,  and  justice  attracted  the  most  renowned  vikingar, 
skalds  and  strangers  to  his  court  at  Lejre,  and  he  was  so 
much  beloved  by  his  own  men  that,  after  he  was  treacherously 
slain  by  Hjartvar,  one  of  the  Smaa-kongar,  who  paid  him  tribute 
and  who  had  married  his  sister  Skulda,  all  his  faithful  attendants, 
excepting  one,  followed  him  in  death.  This  one,  called  Vb'gg, 


2  5  SCA  NDINA  VIA  N  HIS  TOR  Y. 

only  waited  till  he  could  avenge  Rolf,  and  when  the  traitor  Hjart- 
var  held  out  his  sword  to  receive  his  oath  of  fidelity,  he  caught 
hold  of  the  weapon,  and  after  thrusting  it  into  the  heart  of  the 
king,  met  his  death  at  the  hands  of  the  men  of  Oeland  without 
uttering  a  cry  or  flinching  a  step.  Rolf  Krake,  who  received 
his  name  from  the  word  Kraki,  meaning  the  straight  stem  of  a 
tree,  on  account  of  his  slim  and  graceful  figure,  was  the  grandson 
of  the  Danish  king  Helge,  who  was  esteemed  one  of  the  bravest 
vikingar  of  his  times.  Rolf  was,  in  general,  attended  by  his 
twelve  Berserker  when  he  went  forth  in  search  of  adventures, 
and  these  were  the  men  who  fell  with  him  at  Lejre,  when  his 
brother-in-law  surprised  and  slew  him  in  the  night,  after  they 
had  shared  in  a  great  yule-tide  feast.  The  name  Berserker  has 
a  strange  meaning,  for  it  signifies  men  in  bare  shirts  or  sarks,  that 
is  bare-sarkers.  The  reason  why  this  name  had  been  taken  by 
many  of  the  vikingar  was,  that  at  one  time  there  was  a  fashion, 
among  the  bravest  of  their  number,  of  working  themselves  up 
into  a  frenzy  before  they  went  into  battle.  This  they  did  by 
rushing  and  striking  at  everything  in  their  way,  until  they  grew 
so  excited  that  they  did  not  seem  to  feel  pain,  cold,  or  heat,  and 
as  they  generally  stripped  themselves  to  their  shirts  on  these 
occasions,  this  state  of  wild  fury  was  called  a  berserker-gang, 
and  those  who  took  part  in  it  were  known  as  Berserkers. 


PART  III. 

END     OF     THE     MYTHIC     AGE. 

Northern  plains  of  Troy. — The  Northmen  like  the  Greeks  of 
old  had  a  battle-plain  on  which,  according  to  their  best-loved 
myths,  their  gods  and  goddesses  shared  in  the  struggles,  defeats, 
and  victories  of  mortal  warriors.  This  Trojan  plain  of  Scan- 
dinavia was  in  East  Gotland,  where,  at  a  spot  called  Bravalla, 
near  the  river  Braa,  and  within  sight  of  the  hostile  fleets  that 
lay  moored  in  the  Baltic,  gods  and  men  were  fabled  to  have  met 
in  a  fight  as  fierce  as  that  described  by  poets  as  having  been 
fought  before  the  walls  of  Troy.  The  battle  of  Bravalla  seemi 


THE  DANES  IX  EARL  Y  TIMES. 


from  the  first  to  have  been  a  very  favourite  subject  with  the 
skalds  of  Sweden  as  well  as  Denmark,  and  was  fought  between 
the  Danish  king,  Harald  Hildetand,1  and  his  young  Swedish 
kinsman,  Sigurd  Ring.  The  sagas  tell  us  that  immense  pre- 
parations for  the  fight  were  made  on  both  sides,  and  that  while 
Harald's  fleet  stretched  from  Sjoelland  across  the  Sound  far  up 
the  coast  of  Sweden,  young  Sigurd  sailed  out  of  the  harbour  of 
Stocksund  at  the  head  of  two  thousand  five  hundred  ships.2 

The  skalds  relate  that  Odin,  seeing  all  this  vast  array,  and 
hearing  from  his  ravens  that  Frisians,  Wends,  Finns,  Lapps, 
Danes,  Saxons,  Jutes,  Goths,  and  Swedes,  were  flocking  towards 
the  field  of  Era  valla  to  take  part  in  this  great  battle  for  the 
mastery  of  the  North,  resolved  to  appear  in  the  melee.  Spring- 
ing on  the  chariot  of  the  aged  and  blind  Harald,  the  god  car- 
ried him  into  the  midst  of  the  fight  and  slew  him  with  his  own 
battle-axe.  Harald,  who  had  recognized  the  hand  which  guided 
his  chariot  so  firmly  through  the  ranks  of  the  foe,  had  implored 
the  god  not  to  forsake  his  faithful  Danes  in  this  hour  of  their 
peril,  but  Odin's  reply  had  been,  that  he  himself  had  taught  the 
secret  of  victory  to  the  young  Sigurd  Ring.  Then  the  aged 
Danish  king  felt  that  all  was  over  ;  for  till  that  moment  he 
alone  of  all  living  men  had  known  the  art  of  ranging  his  army 
in  the  wedge-shaped  form  which  he  had  learned  in  early  youth 
from  Odin,  and  which,  as  he  had  often  proved,  always  brought  vic- 
tory with  it.  The  dead  lay  heaped  in  huge  piles  when  that  day's 
fight  was  done,  and  as  the  chariots  of  the  victors  passed  from 
the  field,  the  bodies  of  the  slain  which  fringed  the  narrow  road 
reached  to  the  axle  of  the  wheels.  As  usual  in  great  northern 
battles,  only  nobles  were  counted  among  the  dead,  but  of  these 
there  were  twelve  thousand  of  Ring's  army  and  thirty  thousand 
Danes. 

This,   the   skalds   say,  was  the  last  time  Odin  appeared  on 
earth  ;  in  other  words,  men  were  beginning  to  disbelieve  in  the 

1  Harald   "  Ilildeland, "  Glistening    Tooth,    was  grandson    of  the   great 
Swedish  or  Skaanian  king,  Ivar  Vidfadme,  or  the  Far  Stretching,  so  called 
from  his  great  conquests.      Harald's  father  was  Helge,  who,  with  his  brother 
Rerik,  reigned  at  Lejre  in  the  seventh  century. 

2  Sigurd  Ring  was  grandson  of  Harald  Ilildetand's  mother  Audur  by  her 
second  husband,  King  Radbard  of  Gardarike,  Russia. 


28  SCA  XDINA  VI AN  HIS  TOR  Y. 


presence  of  gods  and  goddesses,  and  hence  we  hear  no  more  of 
them  after  the  battle  of  Bra  valla.  The  account  of  this  great 
right  ends  with  the  relation  of  the  manner  in  which  young  Sigurd 
Ring  honoured  the  memory  of  his  foe,  by  causing  the  remains 
of  the  Danish  king  to  be  burnt  with  great  pomp  and  ceremony 
in  the  presence  of  all  the  armies,  while  he  himself  fed  the  burn- 
ing pile  by  throwing  into  the  flames  his  weapons  and  many 
golden  and  silver  ornaments,  which  he  had  gathered  together  in 
the  course  of  his  viking  expeditions. 

Regner  Lodbrog  and  his  Sons. — The  battle  of  Bravalla  is 
supposed  to  have  been  fought  some  time  in  the  eighth  century, 
and  it  probably  gave  Denmark  to  the  successful  young  king  of 
the  Swedes,  Sigurd  Ring,  whose  son,  Regner  Lodbrog,  is  a  great 
favourite  among  all  the  early  writers  of  Scandinavia.  The 
number  of  dangers  and  adventures  that  this  hero  met  with  in 
the  course  of  his  life,  more  especially  when  he  went  forth  in 
search  of  a  wife,  which  he  did  more  than  once,  surpass  the 
powers  of  any  mortal  man.  But  the  greatest  difficulty  in  re- 
gard to  the  history  of  this  hero  is  that,  while  the  Danes  speak 
of  him  as  living  in  one  century,  the  Anglo-Saxons,  among 
whom  he  often  appeared,  give  a  different  date  for  the  same 
events  as  the  Danish  writers  describe.  His  nickname  of  Lod- 
brog, or  Leather  Leggings,  he  owed  to  the  fact  of  his  having 
adopted  the  fashion  of  wearing  these  leg-protectors  when  he  was 
making  court  to  the  Gothic  Princess,  Thyra,  a  young  lady  who 
lived  in  a  bower  defended  by  a  venomous  serpent,  which  had  the 
very  inconvenient  practice  of  biting  at  the  legs  of  all  her  suitors. 

After  a  long  course  of  viking,  Regner  of  the  leather  leggings 
met  his  death  at  the  hands  of /Ella,  King  of  Northumbria,  who, 
having  seized  him  in  the  act  of  invading  his  country,  caused 
him  to  be  thrown  into  a  pit  filled  with  adders,  as  he  would  not 
declare  his  name  and  the  cause  of  his  appearance  on  the  North- 
umbrian coast.  Regner  bore  the  torments  of  his  slow  death 
without  complaint,  simply  remarking  that  "the  young  pigs  at 
home  would  grunt  aloud  when  they  found  out  what  had  become 
of  the  old  boar,  their  father  !  "  According  to  the  old  sagas,  his 
sons  certainly  did  cry  aloud  when  they  heard  of  the  death  he 
had  suffered,  and  never  rested  till  they  had  taken  a  still  more 
cruel  revenue  on  .-HI la.  We  are  told  that  these  sea-rovers 


THE  DANES  IN  EARLY  TIMES.  29 


landed  in  Northumbria,  some  years  afterwards,  with  a  large  fleet 
and  a  great  number  of  other  vikingar,  and  over-ran  and  pillaged 
the  country ;  and  that  they  took  the  king  captive  and  killed 
him  by  cutting  open  his  back,  tearing  out  his  heart,  and  after 
thus  torturing  their  victim,  ended  by  carving  the  figure  of  an 
outspread  eagle  on  his  back,  shoulders  and  loins.  After  thus 
satisfying  their  vengeance,  the  sons  of  Regner  are  said  to  have 
divided  ^Ella's  territories  and  cast  lots  for  their  father's  many 
lands,  Ivar  Benlos  taking  Northumbria,  Hvitsek  Jutland,  Bjorn 
Sweden,  and  Sigurd  Skaania  and  the  Danish  islands.  Anglo- 
Saxon  writers  record  an  invasion  a  century  later  by  Danish 
vikingar,  or  Sea-Kings,  as  they  were  often  called,  amongst  whom 
we  meet  with  the  same  names  ;  but  they  do  not  seem  to  know 
that  the  coming  of  their  unwelcome  guests  had  any  other  motive 
than  the  usual  one  of  pillage,  and  here,  as  in  many  other  in- 
stances, it  is  altogether  impossible  to  reconcile  the  accounts 
given  by  Northern  and  English  authorities  in  regard  to  the  same 
persons  and  events.  Truth  and  falsehood  seem  to  be  so  closely 
mixed  together  in  the  early  history  of  the  Danes,  and  time  so 
thoroughly  set  at  defiance,  that  it  is, hopeless  to  attempt  to  make 
the  narrative  agree  with  what  foreigners  have  to  tell  us  from 
their  own  acquaintance  with  Danish  heroes. 

The  dreaded  Vikingar. — It  would  seem  that  after  the  time  of 
these  vikingar,  who  were  either  the  sons  or  grandsons  of  Reg- 
ner Lodbrog,  the  whole  of  Scandinavia  was  split  up  into  a  great 
number  of  small  free  states,  some  of  whose  more  distinguished 
rulers  may  have  helped  to  swell  the  long  lists  of  royal  names 
given  by  Saxo.  In  the  eighth  and  ninth  centuries  the  Danish 
vikingar  first  became  formidable  to  the  English,  and  from  about 
the  year  830,  they  came  spring  after  spring  to  plunder  the  un- 
happy land  of  England,  roaming  over  the  country  like  pirates 
at  sea,  robbing,  killing,  and  destroying  as  they  went  on  their 
way,  till  their  course  might  be  everywhere  tracked  by  the  misery 
and  desolation  they  left  behind  them.  This  state  of  tilings 
continued  with  little  change  till  the  time  of  our  King  Alfred, 
who,  before  his  death,  in  the  year  901,  had,  however,  so  com- 
pletely overmastered  these  terrible  invaders,  that  all  who  were 
unwilling  to  settle  peacefully  in  the  land,  and  accept  Christianity 
for  their  religion,  were  forced  to  leave  the  kingdom. 


30  SCANDINA  VIAN  HIS  TDK  Y. 

When  they  could  no  longer  carry  on  the  course  of  pillage  in 
which  they  took  such  delight,  the  Northmen  did  not  care  very 
much  about  coming  to  England  ;  and  we  find  that,  about  the 
time  when  they  ceased  to  torment  the  Anglo-Saxons,  they  began 
to  appear  in  great  numbers  on  the  Continent.  The  Franks  and 
Germans  now  learnt  to  fear  their  name  as  much  as  the  English 
had  once  done,  for  in  the  lands  where  Charlemagne  had  reigned 
there  was  no  prince  strong  enough  to  drive  them  out  of  his 
territories,  and  secure  peace  from  their  attacks  as  Alfred  had 
done  for  his  subjects. 

We  have  said  nothing  of  the  Danish  wars  in  England,  because 
they  are  fully  described  in  the  Old  English  History,1  but  we 
shall  now  have  to  notice  more  at  length  what  the  Danes  did  in 
Gaul  and  Germany  after  they  had  ceased  to  plague  England. 
It  happens  strangely  enough  that  we  know  the  least  of  the  state 
of  Denmark,  and  of  what  the  Danes  were  doing  in  their  own 
homes,  at  the  very  time  that  they  were  making  their  name  the 
most  feared  and  hated  all  over  Christendom.  The  reason  ot" 
this  is  that  one  thousand  years  ago — in  871 — when  Alfred  the 
Great  became  King  of  England,  and  his  subjects  were  in  terror 
lest  the  Danes  would  deprive  them  of  their  pleasant  English 
homes,  Denmark  itself  was  left  quite  unprotected,  and  was  so 
deserted  by  the  Danish  people,  that  it  may  be  said  to  have  had 
no  history  of  its  own. 

We  may  compare  this  period  to  the  darkest  hour  of  the  night, 
just  before  the  dawn  of  day  is  breaking  in  the  sky  and  letting 
in  the  first  faint  streak  of  light,  which  is  by  and  by  to  burst  into 
full  day.  In  the  middle  of  the  ninth  century  the  darkness  of 
paganism  was  the  deepest  in  the  North,  and  all  objects  around 
seemed  buried  in  night,  but  at  the  beginning  of  the  tenth  cen- 
tury the  course  of  events  in  Scandinavia  begins  to  grow  bright 
and  clear.  Before  the  death  of  our  Alfred,  in  901,  Denmark. 
Sweden,  and  Norway  can  scarcely  be  said  to  have  had  any 
true  history,  but  after  that  period — in  Denmark  at  any  rate — 
we  begin  to  see  our  way  through  a  regular  succession  of  reigns, 
and  we  are  able  to  funn  some  idea  of  the  manner  in  which  the 
people  lived,  and  the  northern  kingdoms  were  ruled. 

1  See  more  especially  Chapters  VIII.  nnd  IX.  "  Old  English  History," 
F..  A.  Freeman,  D.C.L.  Macmillan  and  Co.  iS;i. 


CHAPTER   III. 


THE    NORTHMEN     IN    EARLY    TIMES. 


How  the  Gospel  came  to  be  first  preached  to  the  Northmen — The  wish  of 
the  Emperor  Louis  I  to  convert  the  heathen — Ebbo's  mission  to  Jutland 
— King  Harald  Klak  baptized,  his  sponsors,  the  oath  he  took — His 
presents,  which  required  many  barks  to  carry  them  to  Denmark — Louis 
looks  out  for  a  missionary — Anscarius  is  sent  forth  to  convert  the 
Northmen  ;  his  bad  success  ;  his  return  to  the  Emperor's  court ;  his 
second  voyage  to  the  North,  and  his  labours  in  Sweden  ;  he  is  made 
Archbishop  of  Hamburgh  ;  what  happens  to  him  there  ;  his  death — 
The  fate  of  Christianity  in  the  North — Gorm  the  Old,  first  king  of 
all  Denmark  ;  his  birth  and  descent ;  his  mode  of  being  brought  up ; 
his  adventures  at  Ashloo — Charles  the  Fat,  Emperor  of  Germany ;  his 
foolish  conduct  and  cowardice  ;  his  laws  in  favour  of  the  Northmen — 
The  siege  of  Paris — The  Germans  grow  tired  of  their  Emperor,  and 
choose  a  very  different  ruler,  who  beats  the  Danes  at  Louvaine — 
Gorm's  return  to  Denmark. 


PART  I. 
CHRISTIANITY     IN     THE     NORTH. 

First  efforts  to  Convert  the  Northmen. — BEFORE  we  enter  upon 
the  history  of  the  reign  of  Gorm  the  Old,  first  king  of  all  Den- 
mark, we  must  go  back  nearly  fifty  years,  in  order  to  relate  the 
manner  in  which  Christianity  was  first  introduced  among  the 
Northmen,  and  Christian  monks  were  led  to  penetrate  into  the 
unknown  lands  of  those  dreaded  pagans.  In  the  time  of  our 
Ecgbert,  the  grandfather  of  Alfred  the  Great,  foreign  nations, 
as  we  have  seen,  knew  little  or  nothing  of  the  homes  of  the 
Northmen,  and  the  people  themselves  were  too  much  absorbed 


SC AND  IN  A  VI AN  If  IS  TOR  Y. 


in  vrking  abroad  to  care  much  for  what  was  going  on  in  their 
own  countries.  An  event  did,  however,  happen  in  Denmark 
about  fourteen  years  before  King  Ecgbert's  death,  which  the 
Prankish  chroniclers  felt  to  be  so  important  that  they  were  at 
great  pains  to  record  all  they  knew  about  it.  This  event  was 
the  preaching  of  the  Gospel  in  the  North,  in  823,  by  Frankish 
monks,  who  entered  upon  their  dangerous  mission  in  compliance 
with  the  earnest  wishes  of  their  pious  Emperor,  Louis  le  Debon- 
naire,  but  not  in  obedience  to  any  command  of  his,  for  he  had 
declared  that  "  in  so  holy  a  work  the  labourers  must  go  willingly 
and  not  by  constraint." 

This  Louis  was  the  son  and  successor  of  Charlemagne,  the 
great  emperor  of  the  West,  but  so  unlike  his  father  in  everything 
but  his  respect  for  the  Church,  that  under  him  the  newly  formed 
empire  fell  rapidly  into  decay,  and  the  prelates  and  nobles  were 
able  to  make  themselves  independent  of  the  crown.  The  vast 
empire,  which  it  had  cost  the  father  so  many  years  of  anxious 
toil  to  complete,  was  broken  up  under  the  son  into  numerous 
states,  which  were  free  except  in  name  ;  for  although  their  rulers 
still  did  homage  to  the  emperor  for  the  lands  which  they  held 
under  him,  the  power  of  the  crown  seemed  at  an  end.  In  this 
state  of  things,  while  the  princes  of  the  land  did  as  they  liked 
within  their  own  domains,  and  cared  nothing  for  the  general 
welfare  of  the  State,  and  the  emperor  spent  his  time  with  priests 
and  monks,  the  boundaries  of  the  empire  were  left  unprotected  ; 
and  very  soon  the  poor  Franks  found  themselves  exposed  to 
the  attacks  of  pagan  invaders,  who  poured  in  upon  them  from 
every  direction.  The  emperor  made  no  effort  to  protect  his 
subjects,  but  he  bent  his  mind  to  the  task  of  finding  means  to 
convert  the  pagans.  To  lead  heathens  to  the  font  and  sign 
them  with  the  cross,  seemed  to  him  far  nobler  than  to  subdue 
them  by  the  sword.  As  soon,  therefore,  as  he  came  to  the 
throne,  lie  took  counsel  with  his  friend  Kbbo,  archbishop  of 
Rheims,  how  best  to  carry  out  the  work  of  conversion,  and  at 
his  desire  the  primate,  who  shared  in  his  wishes,  hastened  to 
Rome  to  demand  the  Pope's  permission  to  send  monks  into 
Slesvig  and  Jutland  to  convert  the  inhabitants,  of  whose  pagan 
practices  fearful  accounts  had  been  brought  to  Oermany. 

L'ljbo  himself  undertook  the  conduct  of  this  first  mission  into 


THE  NORTHMEN  IN  EARL  Y  TIMES.  33 

the  northern  lands,  but  after  a  short  stay  in  Slesvig  he  was 
forced  by  the  savage  state  of  the  country  to  return  to  Germany. 
The  only  apparent  result  of  the  undertaking  was  the  conversion 
of  a  prince,  called  Harald  Klak,  who  accompanied  the  primate 
to  the  imperial  court,  and  together  with  his  family  and  followers 
received  baptism  at  the  font  of  the  church  of  St.  Alban's  at 
Mayence,  when  the  emperor  and  his  empress,  Judith,  stood 
sponsors  for  them  all.  The  Danes  on  this  occasion  took  an 
oath  abjuring  paganism  ;  and  to  the  question,  "  Forsachista  Dia- 
bolac  ?  "  (Dost  thou  forsake  the  devil  ?),  each  one  answered,  "  EC 
forsacho  Diabolse  "  (I  forsake  the  devil) ;  and  when  Ebbo  put 
the  question,  "  Allum  Diaboles  Wercum?"  (All  the  works  of 
the  devil?),  the  pagans  replied,  "  End  allum  Diaboles  Wercum 
end  Wordum,  Thuncer  end  Woden,  end  allum  them  unholdum, 
the  hira  Genotas  sint"  (And  all  the  works  and  words  of  the 
devil,  Thor  and  Woden  and  all  the  ungodly  ones,  who  are 
their  helpers). 

After  this  great  event  Harald  returned  to  Jutland,  laden  with 
the  many  rich  giftst  hat  Louis  and  the  empress  Judith  had  given 
him  and  his  family;  and  the  emperor  called  together  all  his 
chief  bishops  and  nobles,  and  begged  them  to  take  counsel  with 
him  and  decide  how  he  could  best  go  on  with  the  good  work  of 
converting  the  pagan  Northmen.  But  for  a  long  time  nothing 
could  be  done,  for  no  one  could  be  found  bold  enough  to  go 
among  such  fierce  heathens.  At  last  the  emperor's  cousin 
Walo,  Abbot  of  Corvey  in  Picardy,  announced  that  he  knew  a 
young  monk,  willing  and  able  to  endure  all  hardships  in  the 
cause  of  Christ,  who  had  long  been  blessed  by  happy,  holy 
dreams,  and  whose  heart  was  set  on  the  hope  of  earning  for 
himself  a  martyr's  crown  of  glory. 

"  Send  for  this  holy  brother  with  all  speed,  good  Cousin," 
said  Louis,  when  he  heard  his  report.  Accordingly  this  young 
monk,  who  since  his  infancy  had  dwelt  in  the  monastery  of 
Corvey,  was  sent  for  and  brought  before  the  emperor.  Louis, 
on  hearing  his  willingness  to  seek  the  heathens  of  Denmark, 
gave  him  a  present  of  a  bible,  and  caused  him  to  be  provided 
with  tents  and  all  things  needed  for  his  dangerous  journey, 
together  with  the  sacred  vessels  and  white  robes  required  to 

D 


34  SCANDINA  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 

perform  the  services  of  the  Church  and  to  baptize  the  converts 
that  he  might  make. 

Anscarius,  the  Apostle  of  the  North. — This  monk,  who  is  looked 
upon  as  the  true  apostle  of  the  North,  was  named  Anscarius,  or 
Anskar.  Although  a  man  of  noble  origin,  he  was  so  humble- 
minded  that  he  scrupled  not  to  labour  with  his  hands  to 
gain  his  living,  and  never  asked  the  monks  placed  under  him  to 
perform  any  menial  kind  of  work  in  which  he  did  not  take  his 
share.  He  and  his  friend,  the  monk  Autbert,  set  sail  in  827 
for  Slesvig,  and,  after  undergoing  all  kinds  of  hardships  in  the 
company  of  the  rude  and  half-savage  Danes,  with  whom  they 
made  the  long  voyage,  they  landed  at  Hedeby  (the  present 
Slesvig),  and  at  once  began  the  work  of  conversion  by  buying 
young  slaves  and  baptizing  them. 

Louis  was  full  of  hope  and  joy  at  the  prospect  of  bringing 
the  whole  of  Denmark,  as  he  believed,  to  the  faith  of  Christ. 
But,  to  his  great  sorrow,  he  soon  learnt  that  the  poor  mis- 
sionaries had  been  obliged  to  flee  for  their  lives.  Instead  of  being 
received  at  the  royal  court  of  Denmark,  as  they  had  expected, 
when  they  reached  Hedeby,  and  being  helped  by  a  power- 
ful king,  they  had  found  that  Harald  Klak,  if  he  ever  had  been  a 
king,  certainly  no  longer  had  a  kingdom  or  subjects.  Instead 
of  helping  them,  he  had  been  obliged,  like  themselves,  to  leave 
the  country  in  all  haste  and  return  to  the  court  of  the  emperor. 
This  was  a  sad  blow  to  the  hopes  of  the  good  and  pious  Louis 
le  Debonnaire,  who,  as  usual  with  him,  had  no  money  to  spare  to 
send  the  ships  and  men  which  Harald  declared  were  needed  to 
protect  the  Christian  preachers,  and  therefore  Anscarius  and 
Autbert  were  forced  for  a  time  to  give  up  the  work  they  had 
so  much  at  heart. 

A  few  years  later,  a  Swedish  king,  Bjorn,1  sent  a  letter  written 
in  runic  characters  to  Louis,  begging  him  to  let  Christian  monks 
come  to  his  country  that  he  and  his  people  might  learn  the 
religion  of  Christ.  On  this  the  emperor  again  sent  for  Ans- 
carius, who  willingly  undertook  the  task,  and  with  a  few  monks 

1  This  Bjorn  was  a  kin^  of  the  Svea,  or  Upper  Swedes  and  had  his  chief 
town  at  Uppsala  near  the  j;reat  temple  of  Odin.  The  fir>t  visit  of  Anscarius 
to  his  court  took  place  in  829  ;  and  in  853  he  again  ventured  amongst  the 
pagans  of  Sweden. 


THE  NORTHMEN  IN  EARLY  TIMES.  35 

and  servants  entered  upon  the  long  and  perilous  journey  to 
Sweden.  In  the  course  of  their  voyage  across  the  Baltic  they 
were  seized  on  by  pirates,  robbed  of  their  greatest  treasures — the 
forty  manuscript  books  which  the  emperor  had  given  them — 
and  after  enduring  many  hardships,  were  put  on  shore  sick, 
hungry,  and  nearly  naked.  In  this  wretched  plight,  and  not 
knowing  a  word  of  the  language,  they  made  their  way  across 
lakes  that  seemed  to  them  like  vast  seas,  through  forests  in- 
fested with  bears  and  wolves,  and  over  snow-covered  moun- 
tains, till  they  reached  the  port  of  Birka,  where  they  were  well 
received  by  King  Bjorn  and  his  people,  and  allowed  to  preach 
and  to  baptize  all  who  wished  to  become  Christians.  A  rich 
Swedish  noble  even  built  a  church  for  the  converts,  and 
Anscarius  remained  amongst  the  Svea  for  many  months  con- 
verting and  baptising  a  great  number  of  persons.  As  soon, 
however,  as  he  went  away,  the  new  religion  fell  into  neglect, 
and  when,  twenty  years  later,  he  returned  to  Sweden,  although 
he  was  allowed  for  a  short  time  by  the  Diet  of  the  Goths, 
known  as  the  "  Ting  allra  Gota,"  to  preach  the  new  faith,  the 
people  were  so  afraid  of  bringing  down  the  wrath  of  their  gods 
upon  their  own  heads  if  they  listened  to  the  preachers,  that 
they  threatened  to  kill  them  unless  they  left  the  country  without 
further  delay  ;  and  thus  Anscarius  and  his  monks  were  forced 
to  depart  and  leave  their  work  incomplete. 

Anscarius,  on  his  return  to  Germany  from  his  first  mission  to 
Sweden,  was  rewarded  by  the  emperor  for  his  many  and  great 
labours  by  receiving  the  archbishopric  of  Hamburgh,  which 
had  at  the  special  request  of  Louis  le  Debonnaire  been  created 
on  purpose  for  him,  and  was  to  include  all  the  north  of  Europe, 
both  the  lands  which  were  known  and  such  as  might  be  yet 
discovered.  This  seemed  a  brilliant  recompense  for  the  labours 
he  had  undergone,  but  the  poor  archbishop  soon  found  that 
there  were  only  very  few,  if  any  Christians,  in  his  see,  and  as 
he  had  no  revenues,  and  Hamburgh  was  at  the  time  little  more 
than  a  fishing  hamlet,  he  was  forced,  like  his  few  followers,  to 
earn  his  scanty  means  of  living  by  making  nets  and  sails,  while 
a  hut  served  for  his  palace,  and  a  shed  for  his  cathedral.  Here 
he  laboured  for  some  years,  until  an  invasion  of  Northmen, 
during  which  Hamburgh  was  reduced  to  ashes,  forced  him  to 


36  SCAKDINA  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 

seek  safety  elsewhere,  after  he  and  his  converts  had  been 
robbed  by  the  pirates  of  everything  they  owned.  The  closing 
years  of  this  good  man,  who  gave  his  whole  thoughts  to  the 
labours  of  converting  the  heathen,  were  spent  in  comparative 
quiet  and  safety  at  Bremen,  which  had  been  joined  with  his 
own  see,  and  which  was  not  exposed  like  Hamburgh  to  attacks 
from  the  pagan  Danes ;  and  here,  after  forty  years  of  dangers 
and  labours  at  home  and  abroad,  he  died  peacefully  in  the  year 
865.  After  his  death,  his  grateful  monks  and  converts  fancied 
that  miracles  were  done  and  cures  wrought  at  his  grave.  No 
wonder  that  in  those  ignorant  times  the  people  should  think  that 
so  good,  and  brave  and  pious  a  Christian  as  Anscarius,  would 
receive  more  than  common  favour  from  God,  and  be  allowed 
to  do  what  no  common  mortals  could  ever  hope  to  do  ! 

And  thus,  more  than  a  thousand  years  ago,  when  our 
King  Alfred  was  still  a  youth,  the  Christian  faith  was  carried 
into  the  far-distant  savage  North  ;  but  after  the  death  of 
Anscarius  the  good  seed  of  truth  seemed  to  be  stifled.  The 
Pagans  raged  a.nd  roamed  over  the  lands  in  which  he  had  first 
preached  the  Gospel,  and  nearly  two  hundred  years  passed 
away  before  Christianity  was  received  as  the  faith  of  all  Den- 
mark, and  a  still  longer  time  before  it  quite  thrust  out  Paganism 
from  Norway  and  Sweden.  Having  thus  seen  how  Christianity 
was  planted  in  the  North,  and  how  rapidly  it  died  out  again 
there,  we  will  now  turn  to  the  story  of  Gorm,  one  of  the 
greatest  foes  of  the  Christian  faith  in  that  age. 


PART  II. 

DENMARK. 

Conn  the  Old. — The  first  King  of  all  Denmark,  called  by 
the  Danes,  Gunn  den  Ganile,  or  The  Old,  lived  between  860 
and  936.  He  is  said  to  have  been  the  son  of  a  Norwegian 
chief  of  royal  descent,  Hardegon,  or,  Hardcknud?  as  some  give 
his  name,  a  fierce  Pagan  warrior,  who,  wishing  to  better  his 

1  Hardegon  was  a  grandson  of  Rogner  I.ocli.Tog. 


THE  NORTHMEN  IN  EARLY  TIMES.  37 

fortune,  had  looked  about  him  to  see  where  there  was  a  small 
kingdom  to  be  gained  by  fighting.  Luckily  for  himself  he 
made  choice  of  Lejre,  also  called  Ledra,  in  the  fruitful  Danish 
island  of  Sjoelland.  Here  the  country  was  in  a  worse  state 
than  usual,  which  is  saying  very  much,  and  Hardegon  did  not 
rind  it  a  very  hard  task  to  make  himself  master  of  Lejre,  and 
turn  out  the  rightful  king,  young  Siegric,  who  had  only  just 
got  back  his  throne  from  two  usurpers,  called  Ehnob  and 
Gurd,  the  sons  of  a  Swedish  chief,  Olaf.  This  Olaf  had  come 
some  years  before  from  Sweden  to  seek  his  fortune,  just  as 
Hardegon  came  from  Norway  with  the  same  purpose,  and 
having  defeated  and  killed  the  king  of  that  time,  who  be- 
longed like  young  Siegric  to  the  royal  race  of  Regner  Lod- 
brog,  he  and  his  sons  had  reigned,  as  a  matter  of  course,  till 
their  turn  came  to  be  put  away  from  the  throne. 

The  people  seem  to  have  been  content  with  Hardegon,  who 
was  able  when  he  died  to  leave  the  throne  to  his  son  Gorm, 
and  that  young  prince  was  received  by  the  men  of  Lejre  as 
their  king.  If  Lejre  had  been  only  a  small  kingdom,  like 
the  many  other  states  belonging  to  the  "  Smaa-kongar"  of  the 
Danish  isles,  Gorm  might  never  perhaps  have  been  heard  of  in 
history,  and  certainly  would  not  have  found  it  so  easy  to  make 
himself  King  of  all  Denmark.  Lejre  was,  however,  looked  upon 
as  one  of  the  most  sacred  spots  in  the  North,  for  it  was  there 
that  the  great  sacrifices  of  Odin,  the  chief  god  of  the  North- 
men, were  held.  It  was  at  yule-tide,  or,  as  some  writers  say, 
in  early  spring,  that  the  worshippers  of  Odin  came  from  every 
part  of  the  north  of  Europe  to  share  in  these  sacrifices  and  to 
offer  gifts  of  silver  and  gold,  precious  stones,  and  costly  stuffs 
to  the  twelve  high  priests  of  whom  the  King  of  Lejre  was 
always  the  chief.  Such  offerings  as  these  could  of  course  only 
be  made  by  the  very  richest  men ;  that  is,  by  those  chiefs  who 
had  had  the  best  luck  in  pillaging  the  wealthier  people  of 
Gaul,  Germany  and  Italy  on  some  great  viking-cruise.  But 
all  persons — whether  poor  or  rich — were  expected  to  bring  to 
Odin's  temple  a  horse,  or  a  dog,  or  a  cock,  for  these  animals 
were  counted  sacred  to  him,  and  were  killed  in  large  numbers 
to  do  him  honour  at  his  yearly  sacrifices. 

Odin's  Victims.  —  Every  ninth  year  the  people  flocked  in  great 


38  SCANDINA  V1AN  HISTOR  Y. 

crowds  to  Lejre,  for  then  the  most  solemn  services  of  Odin 
were  celebrated  amid  more  than  ordinary  feasting,  and  with 
games  of  all  kinds.  It  is  believed  that  at  these  ninth-year 
festivals  human  victims  were  offered  to  the  god,  together  with 
the  usual  sacrifices  of  horses,  dogs,  and  cocks,  and  for  this 
purpose  the  great  vikingar  spared  the  lives  of  some  of  the 
captives  whom  they  had  taken  in  viking  or  in  battle,  under  the 
idea  that  Odin  was  best  pleased  with  offerings  that  had  been 
won  in  war.  The  King  of  Lejre,  as  the  chief  pontiff  of  these 
sacrifices,  acquired  great  wealth  as  well  as  power,  for  the  North- 
men always  accompanied  their  offerings  to  the  god  with  rich 
gifts  to  his  priests,  and  thus  young  Gorm,  who  seems  to  have 
been  a  brave,  clever,  and  ambitious  prince,  was  soon  able  to 
increase  his  dominions,  and  to  raise  himself  to  a  much  higher 
rank  than  his  father.  Before  the  close  of  his  reign  he  had 
become  King  of  all  Denmark;  not  only  the  ruler  of  a  small 
kingdom,  but  the  one  monarch  of  Jutland,  Slesvig,  part  of 
Holstein,  Sjoelland,  Fyen,  Falster,  Laaland,  and  all  the  many 
other  islands  occupied  by  the  Danes  between  Germany  and 
Sweden.  Besides  these  lands  he  owned  some  portions  of 
Norway,  and  the  Swedish  provinces  of  Bleking  and  Skaania, 
which  continued  for  several  hundred  years  after  his  time  to  be 
a  part  of  Denmark.  How  he  changed  his  small  state  into  a 
great  kingdom  no  one  knows.  The  writers  of  Danish  history 
say  that  he  did  it  by  buying  one  bit  of  land,  bartering  for 
another,  seizing  upon  one  district  and  getting  another  given  to 
him,  and  so  on,  but  this  does  not  make  his  success  very  clear 
to  us.  This  is,  however,  all  that  they  have  to  say  about  his  good 
fortune,  and  therefore  we  know  only  this  much,  that  Gorm  the 
Old,  who  began  life  as  the  landless  son  of  a  poor,  although 
nobly  born  Norwegian  se  x-rover,  ended  his  days  as  King  of 
Denmark,  which  was  larger  in  that  age  than  the  Denmark  of 
our  own  times. 


THE  NOR  THMEN  IN  EA  RL  Y  TIMES.  39 

PART  III. 
HABITS     OF    THE    NORTHMEN. 

Northern  Life. — Before  we  enter  upon  the  little  that  is 
known  of  the  events  which  happened  in  the  latter  part  of  King 
Gorm's  reign,  we  must  see  what  kind  of  life  the  Northmen  of 
noble  birth  led  in  the  times  of  which  we  are  speaking,  and  the 
adventures  in  which  they  took  part.  In  the  first  place  we  must 
bear  in  mind  that  the  sons  of  a  northern  chief  learnt  from 
their  earliest  years  how  to  endure  hunger  and  cold  without 
complaining,  and  to  practise  all  kinds  of  exercises  by  which 
their  bodies  could  be  strengthened  and  hardened.  They  were 
taught  to  trap  and  kill  wild  animals  in  the  water  and  the  air,  and 
on  the  dry  land  ;  to  throw  stones,  darts  and  javelins ;  wield 
heavy  axes  and  clubs  ;  to  use  oars,  steer  boats,  and  to  keep  their 
barks  in  good  trim  for  all  weathers  and  seasons.  They  could 
ride  and  swim,  and  scud  along  upon  snow-shoes,  or  skate  long 
distances  over  the  ice.  They  wrestled  and  fought  together,  and 
played  at  being  vikingar  in  such  good  earnest  when  they  were 
small  boys,  that  they  hardly  had  patience  to  wait  till  they  were 
men  before  they  clamoured  to  share  in  all  the  dangers  of  their 
fierce  fathers,  who,  after  having  had  the  same  training  as  them- 
selves, had  rushed  out  into  the  world  to  seek  adventures.  The 
love  which  for  a  long  time  the  early  Northmen  bore  to  their 
homes,  and  to  the  religious  customs  and  social  habits  of  their 
country,  brought  them  back  to  the  North  at  the  end  of  even- 
summer's  short  cruise.  They  spent  the  winter-months  in 
repairing  their  shattered  barks,  collecting  fresh  crews,  planning 
new  expeditions,  and  feasting  among  their  kindred  upon  the 
rich  plunder  they  had  made  on  their  latest  voyage.  Some- 
times the  great  vikingar  stayed  away  in  strange  lands  for 
many  years,  but  when  they  had  been  so  long  absent  they 
must  have  had  all  the  more  to  tell  of  the  strange  sights  they 
had  seen,  and  the  great  deeds  they  had  done.  Thus  the  boys  and 
youths  who  heard  their  wonderful  tales,  soon  began  to  think  that 
there  was  nothing  on  earth  so  noble  and  charming  as  to  become 


40  SCANDINA  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 

a  sea-rover,  and  go  forth  like  their  elders  to  win  renown,  wealth, 
and  glory — perhaps  even  a  small  kingdom  all  to  themselves. 

Northern  ^Rovers. — Gorm,  who  had  been  brought  up  like  other 
nobles  of  the  North,  went  early  on  a  cruise  along  the  coasts  of 
the  Baltic,  and  even  joined  some  of  his  countrymen  in  a  hostile 
incursion  into  Garderike  or  Russia,  where  they  had  made  their 
way  to  Smolensko  and  Kief,  pillaging  and  conquering  as  they 
went.  Next  we  hear  of  him  in  the  year  882  in  Germany,  where 
he  was  one  of  the  chief  captains  of  a  band  of  daring  Northmen, 
who  had  entrenched  themselves  at  a  place  called  Aschloo  on 
the  river  Maas,  whence  they  sallied  forth  and  laid  waste  every- 
thing far  and  near,  setting  fire  to  Maestricht,  Louvaine,  and 
Tongern,  from  whose  ruins  their  course  might  be  tracked  by 
the  barren  fields  and  burnt  homesteads  on  the  roads  to  Juliers 
and  Aix-la-Chapelle.  At  the  latter  place  they  stalled  their 
horses  in  the  beautiful  chapel  where  the  great  Charlemagne  lay 
buried,  and  stripped  off  the  gilded  and  silvered  railings  that 
enclosed  his  tomb.  Nor  would  a  fragment  of  gold  or  silver,  a 
single  precious  stone,  or  a  shred  of  costly  silken  or  linen-fabric 
have  escaped,  had  not  the  terrified  monks  shown  themselves  very 
quick  and  skilful  in  hiding  away  every  bit  of  plate,  every  orna- 
mental hand-written  book,  and  every  vestment  that  they  owned. 

When  they  had  got  all  they  could  lay  their  hands  on  at  Aix- 
la-Chapelle,  they  pillaged  and  burnt  the  monasteries  of  Priin, 
Stablo  and  Malmedy,  killed  or  made  captive  some  of  the 
monks,  and  boldly  bade  defiance  to  the  army  which  advanced 
towards  Ashloo  to  destroy  their  entrenchments.  The  emperor. 
Charles  the  Fat,  had  brought  such  an  enormous  array  of 
Frankish,  Bavarian,  Swabian  and  Saxon  troops  against  them, 
that  one  would  have  thought  the  Northmen  must  all  have  been 
cut  to  pieces.  But  instead  of  that,  the  Danes  were  clever 
enough  to  persuade  the  emperor  not  to  strike  a  blow  against 
them,  and  to  pay  them  as  much  as  2,000  pounds  of  silver  and 
gold,  on  their  promising  that  they  would  be  baptized.  Then 
when  they  found  how  easy  it  was  to  get  money  from  the 
emperor,  they  asked  for  more,  and  stayed  in  their  safe  quarters 
till  they  had  secured  such  a  large  booty,  that  it  required  two 
hundred  ships  to  carry  away  their  plunder.  When  the  great 
vikingar  Siegfred  and  Gorm,  with  the  other  small  kings,  who 


THE  NORTHMEN  IN  EARLY  TIMES. 


had  fought  with  them  at  Aschloo,  returned  to  Denmark  and 
showed  their  treasures  to  their  Danish  friends,  the  Danes 
became  more  eager  than  ever  to  join  in  the  next  viking 
expedition  against  the  unhappy  subjects  of  Charles  the  Fat. 

This  monarch,  instead  of  fighting  bravely  to  drive  away  the 
fierce  pagan  Danes,  passed  a  law  that  anyone  who  killed  a 
Northman  should  have  his  eyes  put  out,  and  even  in  some  cases 
lose  his  life.  The  Danes  when  they  heard  of  this  strange  law 
could  not  at  first  believe  the  good  news,  but  when  they  came 
back  into  Charles'  empire,  and  found  that  such  a  law  really 
had  been  passed,  they  were  filled  with  joy,  and  becoming  more 
insolent  than  ever,  they  demanded  12,000  pounds  of  silver 
as  the  price  of  peace.  It  would  take  too  long  to  relate  how 
often  they  deceived  the  poor  Franks  and  how  many  times  they 
forced  the  emperor  to  buy  them  off.  But  before  we  leave  the 
story  of  the  doings  of  the  Northmen  in  France  we  must  glance 
at  the  great  Siege  of  Paris,  which  began  about  the  yule-tide  of 
the  year  885,  and  did  not  end  until  the  spring  of  887. 

The  first  Siege  of  Paris. — We  do  not  know  what  Gorm  had 
been  doing  after  the  breaking  up  of  the  camp  at  Aschloo,  but 
in  the  autumn  of  885  he  seems  to  have  joined  his  old  friend, 
Siegfred,  who  not  content  with  the  little  kingdom  which  he 
had  taken  at  Louvaine,  now  and  then  went  off  with  all  his 
best  men  to  burn  and  pillage  some  other  district.  It  was  on 
Siegfred's  return  from  a  tour  of  this  kind,  when  he  had  burnt 
down  the  rich  town  of  Pontoise,  that  one  stormy  day  in 
December  of  the  year  885,  this  old  warrior,  at  the  head  of 
40,000  pagan  Danes  appeared  before  the  gates  of  Paris  and 
demanded  a  free  passage  up  the  river  Seine  for  himself  and  all 
his  men,  with  the  700  barks  that  they  carried  with  them.  At  that 
time  Paris  was  a  very  small  and  poor  place  compared  to  what  it 
now  is,  and  the  whole  of  the  town  was  built  upon  the  little  island, 
known  as  rile  de  la  Cite,  from  which  two  bridges,  flanked  by 
strong  towers,  joined  the  city  to  its  faubourgs  on  the  mainland. 

"  Give  us  a  free  passage  up  your  river,"  cried  Siegfred  to 
Gozelin,  Bishop  of  Paris,  who  had  appeared  at  the  gates  to 
demand  what  the  pagans  wanted  ;  "  if  you  do  not  hinder  me 
and  my  men,  we  will  not  harm  you  and  your  townsmen."  "  And 
what  pledge  will  you  give  me,"  asked  the  bishop  in  reply, 


42  SCANDINA  VIA  N  H1STOR  Y. 

"  that  you  will  keep  good  faith  with  us?"  "  I  will  pledge  you 
my  head,  my  sword,  and  the  honour  of  my  grey  hairs,"  answered 
the  pagan  ;  adding,  "  but  if  you  will  not  grant  the  free  passage 
that  I  ask  at  your  hands,  arrows,  stones  and  darts  shall  be 
showered  on  you,  year  in  and  year  out,  and  famine  and  war  be 
your  portion  !  " 

These  words  proved  no  idle  threat,  for  the  next  morning 
when  Siegfred  saw  that  the  Parisians  would  not  open  their 
gates,  he  and  Gorm  and  other  chiefs  led  forward  their  men, 
and  without  further  delay  began  a  fierce  assault  on  the  north 
tower  near  the  church  of  St.  Germain's,  known  to  us  as  *S'A 
Germain  FAuxerrois.  From  that  hour  for  fifteen  months  the 
citizens  had  little  rest  from  attacks  either  by  night  or  by  day, 
for  the  river  and  the  banks  on  both  sides  swarmed  with  fierce 
Northmen  and  sea-rovers  from  every  part  of  Scandinavia,  who 
had  flocked  to  the  spot  in  great  numbers,  as  soon  as  they  heard 
of  the  siege  of  this  greatest  and  richest  city  north  of  Rome. 
The  men-at-arms  tried  to  force  an  entrance  by  undermining 
and  setting  fire  to  the  walls.  The  horsemen  dashed  forward, 
armed  with  slings,  bows  and  spears,  ready  to  hurl  stones,  arrows 
and  darts  at  the  towers,  while  the  men  in  the  boats  aided  their 
friends  to  do  all  the  mischief  they  could,  and  helped  them  very 
much  by  keeping  them  well  provided  with  food,  which  they 
often  took  by  force  from  the  Prankish  vessels  bringing  pro- 
visions to  the  city. 

The  poor  Parisians  did  their  best  to  beat  off  the  enemy  by 
throwing  hot  pitch,  oil  and  boiling  water  on  the  heads  of  the 
Northmen  and  injuring  them  as  much  as  they  could  ;  and  it  was 
well  they  helped  themselves,  for  they  did  not  get  much  help 
from  others.  The  emperor  left  them  nearly  a  year  without  aid- 
ing them  in  any  way,  although  the  bishop  as  well  as  the  governor 
of  Paris,  Count  Odo  or  Kudes,  had  often  sent  letters  and 
messengers  to  him,  praying  him  to  make  haste  and  bring  an 
army  to  succour  them,  and  the  Pope  had  ordered  him  and  all 
other  Christians  to  hasten  to  the  relief  of  the  unhappy  city. 
Charles  the  Fat  did  not  much  like  meeting  the  Northmen  in 
the  open  field,  and  instead  of  coming  in  person  he  sent  his 
margrave,  Henry  of  Neustria,  with  an  army  to  Paris.  When  this 
prince  came  within  sight  of  the  Danes,  he  found  them  encamped 


THE  NORTHMEN  IN  EARLY  TIMES.  43 

on  either  side  of  the  high  road  leading  to  Soissons,  and  think- 
ing that  their  numbers  looked  very  small  and  that  he  could 
surprise,  them  he  dashed  forward,  followed  by  many  troops,  but 
before  he  could  reach  their  camp,  he  and  all  his  men  and  horses 
found  themselves  sinking  into  pits  and  pools,  which  the  enemy 
had  dug  before  their  tents  and  then  covered  over  with  loose 
branches  and  pieces  of  sod.  The  margrave  was  cut  down, 
and  all  of  his  men  who  could,  ran  away  as  fast  as  they  were 
able,  and  the  Danes  under  Gorm  and  another  king,  Sinrik, 
chased  them  into  the  town  of  Soissons,  where  they  seized  as 
many  captives  as  they  wanted,  and  made  a  great  booty. 

The  Emperor  came  at  last.  —  In  October,  886,  Charles  the  Fat 
came  with  a  great  army,  and  made  his  camp  at  Montmartre, 
but  he  never  struck  a  blow,  and  instead  of  fighting  he  made 
peace  with  the  Danes,  gave  them  the  province  of  Burgundy  to 
keep  for  their  winter-quarters,  and  promised  that  he  would  pay 
them  in  the  month  of  March  700  Ibs.  of  silver.  How  the 
Danes  must  have  rejoiced  at  this  good  fortune,  and  despised 
the  weak  emperor  who  had  been  too  great  a  coward  to  bring 
his  huge  army  against  them  ! 

The  people  of  Paris,  enraged  at  the  emperor's  cowardice, 
refused  to  let  the  Northmen  go  up  the  Seine,  on  which  the 
Danes,  who  were  tired  of  fighting,  harnessed  their  captives  to 
their  boats — twenty  men  to  every  boat — and  dragged  them 
some  distance  by  land  till  they  could  launch  them  on  the  river. 
After  spending  the  winter  at  Sens  they  returned  to  Paris  in  the 
spring  to  demand  the  700  Ibs.  of  silver  promised  them,  and 
after  receiving  the  money  they  withdrew  a  day's  inarch  from 
the  city,  and  made  themselves  very  happy  under  the  idea  that 
they  could  procure  more  whenever  they  liked  to  ask  for  it. 
But  by  that  time  the  Franks  and  Germans  had  grown  weary  of 
their  feeble  rulers,  and  while  the  former  made  Count  Eudes 
their  king,  the  latter  chose  a  brave  prince,  called  Arnulf,  to 
reign  over  them. 

With  these  new  rulers  a  new  state  of  things  began,  and 
before  many  years  had  passed  the  Northmen  were  forced  to 
leave  Germany  and  Gaul.  Gorm  of  Denmark  returned  to 
his  own  country,  after  having  taken  part  in  the  battle  of  Louvaine, 
in  891,  when  the  Northmen  were  so  thoroughly  beaten  by  King 


44  SC AND  IN  A  VIA  N  HIS  TOR  > . 

Arnulf,  that  sixteen  of  their  royal  standards  were  taken  by  the 
victor,  while  their  great  vikingar  Siegfred  and  Gotfred  were 
left  on  the  field,  and  only  a  remnant  of  the  Northern  forces  were 
fortunate  enough  to  escape  alive.  The  German  chroniclers 
try  to  give  still  greater  importance  to  this  glorious  victory  by 
declaring,  that  while  the  waters  of  the  little  river  Dyle  were 
red  with  the  blood  of  hundreds  of  thousands  of  slain  Northmen, 
only  one  man  was  missing  from  the  German  ranks,  when  King 
Arnulf,  with  beat  of  drum,  called  together  his  troops  after  the 
fight,  to  hear  the  priests  chant  the  Te  Deum  in  honour  of  their 
success. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

DENMARK   IN    EARLY  TIMES. 


Queen  Thyra  rules  in  Gorm's  absence — Her  memory  much  respected — She 
and  her  eldest  son  Harald  favour  the  Christians — Knud  her  second  son 
follows  his  father,  King  Gorm's  religion — Gorm  known  as  Worm,  and 
why — His  war  with,  and  defeat  by  Henry  the  Fowler  of  Germany — 
Christians  tolerated — How  Queen  Thyra  built  up  ramparts  in  Gorm's 
absence  ;  the  way  in  which  she  told  Gorm  of  his  son  Knud's  death — 
Gorm  dies  of  grief— H;s  and  Thyra's  grave-mounds — Harald's  son 
Svend  ;  his  bringing  up  under  Palnatoke — The  story  of  Palnatoke's 
famous  archery — Harald's  death — Svend's  invasion  of  England,  his 
death — Knud's  reign  ;  his  conduct  ;  his  murder  of  his  brother-in-law 
Jarl  Ulf;  his  remorse;  his  blood  fine — Knud's  sister  Estrid  ;  her 
husband,  Robert  le  Diable — Knud's  death — -His  sons — Their  reigns  and 
early  deaths — Magnus  the  Good  of  Norway  becomes  King  of  Denmark 
— His  kindness  to  Svend — -The  death  of  Magnus — His  generous  conduct 
in  forgiving  Svend  on  his  death-bed,  and  bestowing  on  him  the  kingdom 
of  Denmark. 


PART  I. 
FIRST    QUEEN     OF     DENMARK. 

Queen  Thyra. — IT  would  seem  that,  when  Gorm  was  absent 
on  a  sea-roving  voyage,  his  queen,  Thyra,  who  is  spoken  of  in 
the  northern  sagas  by  the  name  of  Danebod,  or  the  "  Danes'- 
hope,"  ruled  the  land  very  wisely  for  him.  This  princess, 
whose  name  is  still  honoured  by  the  Danes,  is  said  by  some 
writers  to  have  been  the  daughter  of  an  Anglo-Saxon  prince, 
while  others  believe  her  father  to  have  been  a  Holstein  chief, 


46  SCAXDINA  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 

and  assert  that  her  grandfather  went  in  the  year  826  with  Harald 
Klak  to  the  court  of  the  German  Emperor,  Louis  le  Debonnaire, 
where  he  was  baptized.  Queen  Thyra  herself  early  showed 
favour  to  the  Christians,  and  she  caused  some  of  her  children 
to  be  signed  with  the  cross. 

King  Gorm,  on  the  other  hand,  was  a  fierce  pagan,  and  on 
account  of  his  cruel  treatment  of  his  Christian  subjects,  he 
gained  from  them  the  nickname  of  the  "  Church's  worm,"  be- 
cause, like  a  worm,  he  was  always  gnawing  at  its  supports.  It 
is  not  to  be  supposed  that  Gorm  cared  very  much  about  the 
bad  names  that  the  poor  Christians  might  give  him,  but  he 
found  there  was  some  cause  for  trouble  when  he  learnt  that  his 
conduct  had  roused  the  anger  of  the  great  German  Emperor, 
Henry  I.  the  Fowler.  At  first  he  hoped  that  the  affair  would  end 
in  threats,  but  he  soon  learnt  his  mistake,  for  when  Henry  found 
that  his  messages  to  the  Danish  king  were  not  heeded,  he 
marched  in  haste  to  the  banks  of  the  Eyder,  at  the  head  of  a 
large  army,  and  there  made  Gorm  clearly  see  that  unless  he 
ceased  from  troubling  the  Christians,  as  the  emperor  com- 
manded, Slesvig  and  Jutland  would  be  over-run  and  taken  from 
him,  and  the  rest  of  his  kingdom,  perhaps,  also  invaded  by  the 
great  armies  of  the  empire.  Some  writers  have  stated  that 
Henry  the  Fowler  called  upon  the  Danish  monarch  to  pay  him 
tribute,  in  proof  of  his  being  a  vassal  of  the  German  emperors, 
and  that  Gorm  accepted  peace  ou  those  terms.  It  is  not  cer- 
tain that  this  really  took  place,  but  we  know  that  the  Danish 
king  soon  afterwards  allowed  Unni,  Archbishop  of  Bremen,  to 
preach  the  gospel  in  his  kingdom,  and  to  restore  the  churches 
which  had  been  burnt  or  pulled  down  by  the  pagans,  and  sign 
with  the  cross  his  younger  son,  Harald,  who  like  Queen  Thyra 
had  long  favoured  the  Christians.  Gorm  himself  never  forsook 
the  faith  of  his  forefathers,  and  his  eldest  son  Knud,  called 
"  Dan-Ast,"  or  the  "  Danes'-joy,"  was  also  a  pagan.  This  prince 
was  like  his  father  in  many  things,  and  while  Gorm  and  he  went 
forth  for  years  together,  following  the  life  of  the  vikingar.  Harald 
in  his  youth  seldom  left  the  northern  seas,  although  in  his  later 
days  he  more  than  once  headed  large  ileets  in  invasions  ol 
Britain  and  Normandy. 

When  the  king  and  his  son;,  were  absent,  Queen  Thyr.i  did 


DENMARK  IN  EARL  Y  TIMES.  47 

the  best  she  could  to  rule  the  country  in  peace  and  quiet,  and 
a  hard  task  she  must  have  had,  because  the  Germans  were 
always  making  inroads  into  Slesvig  and  Jutland,  and  turning 
the  border-lands  on  the  Eyder  into  a  desert.  Once  when  Gorm 
stayed  away  longer  than  usual  she  formed  a  plan  for  saving  the 
unhappy  people  from  this  constant  source  of  trouble.  Having 
landed  at  Hedeby,  in  Slesvig,  after  leaving  her  pleasant  home  in 
Sjoelland,  she  sent  forth  letters  to  all  the  provinces  of  Denmark, 
requiring  them  to  provide  able-bodied  workmen  to  help  in 
building  a  long  line  of  ramparts  on  the  Danish  side  of  the  Ger- 
man frontier. 

The  Dannevirke. — In  obedience  to  Queen  Thyra's  summons 
a  great  number  of  men  came  to  the  spot,  and  then  the  Queen 
caused  a  wall  of  defence  to  be  built,  from  forty-five  to  seventy- 
five  feet  high,  over  a  space  of  eight  miles,  stretching  from  the 
Selker  Noer  on  the  Slie,  to  Hollingsted  on  the  Treene,  and 
lying  somewhat  to  the  north  of  an  old  earthwork,  known  as 
Gotfred's  Wall.  Thyra's  ramparts,  of  which  remains  can  still  be 
traced  and  which  have  formed  the  groundwork  of  all  later 
Dannevirke  or  Danish  outworks,  took  three  years  to  finish  and 
were  very  complete  of  their  kind.  They  had  strong  watch- 
towers  at  equal  distances,  and  only  one  well-protected  gate, 
before  which  stretched  a  broad  and  deep  ditch,  which  it  was 
not  easy  to  cross  when  the  bridge  over  it  had  been  taken  away. 
The  Danes  were  very  grateful  to  Queen  Thyra  for  her  Danne- 
virke, and  they  sang  her  praises  in  their  national  rhymes  for 
many  ages,  and  told  wonderful  tales  of  her  clever  way  of  ruling 
the  land,  and  keeping  off  foes  when  her  husband  was  busy  in 
viking  far  away  from  Denmark. 

Jn  the  old  sagas  which  the  Northmen  carried  to  Iceland, 
much  praise  is  given  her  for  the  artful  manner  in  which  she 
more  than  once  turned  away  Gorm's  anger  from  his  people,  and 
even  from  his  own  children.  One  of  these  sagas  relates  that 
her  two  young  sons,  the  princes  Knud  and  Harald,  did  not 
bear  each  other  as  much  brotherly  love  as  they  ought.  Gorm, 
who  knew  of  this,  had  sworn  an  oath  that  he  would  put  to  death 
anyone  who  should  attempt  the  life  of  his  first-born  son,  or  tell 
him  that  he  had  died.  When,  therefore,  tidings  were  brought 
to  Queen  Thyra  that  Knud  Dan-Ast  had  been  drowned  while 


48  SCANDINA  VI AN  HISTOR  \. 

bathing  on  the  coast  of  England,  and  that  the  immediate  cause 
of  his  death  was  a  wound  which  he  had  received  from  an  arrow 
aimed  at  him  from  one  of  his  own  ships  while  he  was  in  the  water, 
she  determined  to  inform  Gorm  in  a  figure  of  speech  of  the  fate 
of  their  son.  Accordingly  she  put  herself  and  all  her  attendants 
in  deep  mourning  and  caused  the  chief  hall  of  her  house  to  be 
hung  with  the  ashy-gray  coloured  hangings  used  at  the  grave  feasts 
of  Northmen  of  noble  birth.  Then,  seating  herself  with  her 
women  at  the  entrance  door,  she  awaited  Gorm's  approach.  The 
King  noticing  these  signs  of  mourning  and  struck  by  the  silence 
and  dejection  of  the  Queen  at  once  guessed  the  truth,  and  paus- 
ing at  the  threshold,  exclaimed,  "  My  son,  Knud,  is  dead ! " 
"  Thou  hast  said  it,  and  not  I,  King  Gorm,"  answered  Thyra, 
and  thus  the  news  of  Knud's  death  was  conveyed  to  his  father 
without  being  followed  by  the  vengeance  which  had  been  threat- 
ened to  those  who  informed  him  of  it. 

Harald,  936 — 985.  — Gorm  died  soon  afterwards,  of  grief  it 
was  said,  and  was  succeeded  by  his  son  Harald,  Blaatand,  or 
Blue  Tooth,1  who  was  believed  by  the  people  to  have  been 
the  murderer  of  his  brother.  He  was  a  man  of  a  cruel  and 
crafty  nature,  and  when  his  nephew  Guld,  or  Gold-Harald,  de- 
manded part  of  the  kingdom  in  right  of  his  father  Knud,  Harald 
put  him  off  by  promising  him  help  to  conquer  Norway,  and 
having  enticed  the  Norwegian  king,  Harald  (iraafell,  to  his 
court,  on  pretence  of  wishing  to  send  cattle  and  corn  into  Nor- 
way, where  there  was  a  famine  at  the  time,  he  induced  Guld- 
Harald  to  slay  Harald  Graafell.  Then,  instead  of  fulfilling  his 
promises  to  his  nephew,  he  sent  for  the  Norwegian  traitor,  Hakon 
Jarl,  with  whom  he  had  formed  a  secret  compact,  and  helped 
him  to  obtain  Norway  on  condition  that  he  should  rule  as  his 
vassal.  The  Jarl  at  first  paid  the  required  taxes  to  Denmark 
and  acknowledged  Harald  as  head  king  in  Norway,  but  when 

'  Harald  caused  two  grave  mounds,  one  of  too  feet, and  the  other  of  50 
f.e!  in  height,  to  be  erected  at  Jellinge,  in  the  district  of  Ribe  in  Jutland,  in 
honour  of  his  father  (lorm  and  his  mother  Thyra.  This  is  recorded  in  runic 
letters  unon  a  lar_;c  stone  that  once  stood  on  the  lower  mound,  which  is 
supposed  to  have  enclosed  the  remains  of  the  queen.  These  high  mounds, 
which  stiil  e\i>t,  have  been  found  to  contain  rooms,  in  which  were  stored 
a\vav  small  silver  a:id  gilt  cups  and  other  filings  that  might  have  been  used 
by  the  king  and  queen  in  theii  everyday  life. 


DENMARK  IN  EARL  Y  TIMES.  49 

the  Danish  King,  with  his  habitual  treachery  refused  to  give  him, 
in  accordance  with  his  former  promises,  any  of  the  treasures 
of  Guld-Harald,  who  had  been  murdered  by  his  uncle's  orders, 
Hakon  quarrelled  with  him  and  made  himself  independent  of 
him. 

Harald  Blaatand  professed  to  be  a  Christian  during  the  latter 
years  of  his  life,  and  allowed  himself,  together  with  his  queen 
and  his  son  Svend,  to  be  publicly  baptized  by  the  German  monk 
Poppa.  This  man  according  to  the  legend  had  performed 
miracles,  and  had  led  many  Danes  to  renounce  paganism  by 
taking  up  in  their  presence  red-hot  bars  of  iron,  and  letting  a 
waxen  covering  be  consumed  upon  his  body  while  he  was  re- 
citing psalms.  When  the  people  saw  these  wonderful  things 
they  admitted  that  his  God  was  more  powerful  than  theirs,  and 
allowed  themselves  to  be  signed  with  the  cross.  Bishoprics 
/ere  soon  afterwards  established  at  Aaarhus,  Ribe  and  Slesvig  ; 
but  when  the  Emperor  Otho  I.  assumed  the  right  of  granting 
charters  to  the  prelates  of  those  sees,  freeing  them  from  the  pay- 
ment of  all  taxes  and  services  to  the  Danish  crown,  King  Harald 
tried  by  force  of  arms  to  seize  upon  their  lands.  Then  the  Em- 
peror came  in  975  with  a  large  army  into  Holstein,  and  by  the 
treachery  of  Hakon  Jarl,  who  had  been  called  upon  to  help  the 
king,  the  Dannevirke  were  burnt  and  the  German  troops  en- 
abled to  overrun  all  Slesvig  and  Jutland,  on  which  Harald  was 
forced  to  submit,  and  peace  was  restored  on  condition  of  his 
leaving  the  bishops  unmolested. 

The  only  one  of  Harald's  many  sons  who  outlived  him  was 
called  Svend.  This  youth,  although  he  had  been  baptized  with 
his  parents,  hated  the  Christians  and  tried  to  follow  in  his 
grandfather  King  Gorm's  steps,  and  do  as  much  harm  to  them 
and  their  religion  as  he  could.  Like  many  other  princes  in 
those  times,  he  had  been  sent  away  from  home  when  a  boy  to 
learn  the  use  of  arms  from  some  brave  warrior.  It  happened 
that  the  chief  in  whose  house  he  was  trained  was  a  very  great 
pagan,  named  Palnatoke,  and  from  him  he  learnt  to  despise  the 
faith  which  his  old  father  King  Harald  had  accepted.  When 
the  King  found  that  Palnatoke  was  teaching  Svend  to  hate  all 
Christians,  he  wished  to  withdraw  him  from  his  care  ;  but  the 
youth  would  not  leave  his  friend,  and  then  Harald  in  his  artful 

E 


50  SCANDINA  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 

way  tried  to  ruin  and  destroy  Palnatoke  ;  and  one  of  the  means 
which  he  took  to  do  this  was  the  same  as  the  device  by  which  it 
is  said  the  Austrian  governor  Gessler,  more  than  four  hundred 
years  later,  strove  to  injure  the  brave  Swiss  peasant  William 
Tell. 

The  Danish  writer  of  history,  Saxo  Grammaticus,  who  lived 
in  the  time  of  our  kings  Richard  I.  and  John,  tells  us  that 
one  day,  when  Palnatoke  was  boasting  before  the  King  of  his 
skill  in  archery,  Harald  told  him  that,  for  all  his  boasting,  he 
knew  there  was  one  shot  which  he  would  not  venture  to  try. 
The  latter  replied,  that  there  was  no  shot  which  he  would  not 
venture  to  try,  and  on  that  the  King  ordered  him  to  shoot  an 
apple  oft"  the  head  of  his  eldest  son,  Aage.  Palnatoke  obeyed. 
The  arrow  entered  the  apple,  and  the  boy  escaped  unhurt,  but 
his  father,  enraged  at  this  and  other  proofs  of  Harald's  cruel 
hatred  of  him,  became  his  sworn  foe,  and  soon  after  withdrew 
to  the  little  island  of  Wollin,  in  Pomerania.  There  he  gathered 
round  him  a  band  of  fierce  pagan  vikingar,  and  founded  the 
brotherhood  of  Jomsborg,  which  for  many  years  proved  a 
frightful  scourge  to  all  the  Christian  lands  on,  and  near  the 
Baltic  Sea.  Harald,  after  a  long  reign,  during  which  he  more 
than  once  carried  ships  and  men  to  Normandy  to  aid  the  young 
Duke  Richard  against  the  French  king,  died  in  985  from  the 
effects  of  a  wound,  which  he  received  in  a  battle  fought  by  him 
against  his  pagan  son,  Svend,  and  Palnatoke.  It  is  said  Svend 
himself  slew  his  father  on  the  battle-field,  while  Palnatoke  stood 
by,  but  the  old  King's  death,  instead  of  bringing  these  men 
the  good  they  had  hoped  from  it,  roused  strife  betvveen  them, 
and  to  the  end  of  his  days  Svend,  called  Tveskrcg  or  "Cleft 
beard,"  had  no  worse  foes  than  Palnatoke  and  the  men  of 
Jomsborg.1 

Svend  Tvcskieg,  985-1014. — This  Svend  Tveskrcg,  was  the 
"  Sweyn  "  who  invaded  England  in  the  time  of  Ethelred  the 
Unready,  and  who.  after  having  driven  Ethclred  out  of  the 
country  and  made  himself  master  of  great  part  of  England, 

1  Under  Palnatoke's  successor,  Sigvald,  the  pagan  republic  of  Jomsborg 
began  to  decay,  and  after  a  great  battle  fought  with  the  Norwegians  under 
Ilakon  Jarl  in  994,  this  much-dreaded  confraternity  was  .subdued  and 
broken  up. 


DENMARK  IN  EARL  Y  TIMES.  5 1 

died  suddenly  at  Gainsborough,  in  the  year  1014,  leaving  his 
son  Knud,  then  a  boy  of  fourteen,  but  afterwards  known  to 
Englishmen  as  Canute  the  Great,  to  complete  the  conquest  of  the 
English  throne  and  impose  upon  the  nation  a  short-lived  line 
of  Danish  rulers. 


PART  II. 

KNUD     AND     HIS     SONS. 

Knud  the  Great,  1018-35. — The  reign  of  Knud  the  Great 
belongs  more  to  the  history  of  England  than  to  that  of  Denmark  ; 
and  as  all  that  refers  to  these  times  is  fully  described  in  the  "  Old 
English  History,"  we  need  not  here  attempt  to  follow  the 
progress  of  the  Danes  in  England  under  Knud  and  his 
sons.  When  the  Danish  king  Svend,  or  Sweyn,  died  at  Gains- 
borough in  the  year  1014,  he  left  another  son,  Harald,  who 
was  younger  than  Knud,  and  was  chosen  to  be  king  by  the 
Danes  as  soon  as  they  heard  of  Svend's  death.  Knud  wanted 
his  brother  to  give  him  some  share  in  the  government  of  the 
kingdom  of  Denmark ;  but  Harald  refused,  telling  him  if  he 
wished  to  be  a  king  he  must  go  back  and  gain  England  for 
himself,  in  which  case,  he  should  have  a  few  ships  and  men  to 
help  him ;  and  as  we  all  know  he  returned  to  England  and 
became  a  much  greater  king  than  his  brother. 

Harald  died  in  1018,  and  then  the  Danes  chose  Knud  for 
their  king,  which  proved  of  great  importance  to  Denmark  ;  for, 
as  he  was  a  Christian,  he  caused  the  Christian  religion  to  be 
made  the  faith  of  the  nation,  and  the  worship  of  Odin  to  be  put 
down  in  all  the  Danish  provinces.  Knud  was  more  partial  to 
England  than  to  any  of  his  other  dominions,  and  only  stayed  in 
Denmark  long  enough  to  settle  the  affairs  of  the  Church  by 
putting  Englishmen  as  bishops  over  the  Danish  clergy,  and  to 
improve  the  state  of  the  country  by  getting  workmen  in  every 
trade  from  England  to  teach  the  Danes,  and  make  them  more 
like  the  people  of  Christian  civilized  countries.  It  thus 
happened  that,  although  the  English  had  been  beaten  by  the 

E    2 


52  SCANDINA  VI AN  IUSTOR  Y. 

Danes,  Denmark  was  made  by  its  own  king,  Knud,  to  feel  that 
England  was  superior  to  it  in  all  great  and  useful  arts. 

Knud  was  a  very  devout  Churchman,  but  he  often  let  his 
passion  get  the  better  of  him,  and  at  such  times  he  spared  his 
friends  as  little  as  his  foes,  and  would  listen  to  no  counsel,  even 
from  the  clergy,  to  whom  he  in  general  paid  great  respect. 
As  soon,  however,  as  his  anger  had  died  out,  he  tried  to  make 
all  the  amends  he  could  to  the  kindred  of  his  victims,  and 
showed  himself  ready  to  submit  to  any  penance  laid  upon  him 
by  the  Church.  Thus,  when  he  had  killed  one  of  his  house-churls. 
or  servants,  for  some  slight  offence,  he  made  public  confession 
of  his  crime,  and  afterwards  paid  the  same  blood-fine  that  would 
have  been  claimed  from  a  man  of  lower  rank.  There  was  one  act 
that  caused  Knud  more  remorse  and  grief  than  anything  else  he 
had  ever  done,  and  that  was  the  murder  of  his  old  friend  and 
brother-in-law  Ulf  Jarl,  towards  whom  he  had  long  borne  ill- 
will  on  account  of  his  having  proclaimed  his  son,  the  young 
prince  Harthaknud,  king  of  Denmark,  while  Knud  himself  was 
in  England,  and  knew  nothing  of  what  was  going  on  in  his 
Danish  states.  At  that  time  Ulf  was  ruling  over  Denmark  for 
King  Knud,  and  he  had  made  himself  so  much  beloved  by  the 
Danish  people  that  they  were  ready  to  do  anything  he  wished. 
This  was  well  known  to  Queen  Emma,  and  when  she  found 
that  she  could  not  persuade  her  husband,  King  Knud,  to  set 
their  little  son  Harthaknud  on  the  throne  of  Denmark,  she 
made  up  her  mind  to  get  the  crown  for  him  without  Knud's 
knowledge.1  She  therefore  sent  messengers  witli  letters  to  Ulf. 
telling  him  that  the  King  desired  to  see  the  young  prince  on  the 
throne,  but  was  anxious  not  to  do  anything  the  people  might 
not  like.  Ulf,  believing  her  story,  had  young  Ilarthaknud 
crowned  king,  but  when  he  learned  the  deceit  that  Queen 
Emma  had  been  guilty  of,  lie  much  feared  the  effect  of  Knud's 
anger,  although  the  latter  for  a  time  treated  him  with  the  same 

1  Queen  Emma  was  the  widow  of /lithclrcd  the  Unready,  the  l.i^t  AiiLdo- 
Saxon   kini;  of   Kn^hmd.  and 
Normandy.      Kin;;  Knud  \\as 
her  in  1017,    but  she   nuist  ha 
with  the   man  who  had  drthi 
from  their  country  and  heriui 
character. 


ni'd  her  former  husband  and  driven  her  son* 


DENMARK  IN  EARLY  TIMES.  53 

favour  as  of  old.  The  Danish  king  was  at  war  with  Sweden 
when  these  events  took  place,  and  had  often  had  great  help 
from  the  Jarl,  who  once  saved  him  from  certain  defeat  by 
coming  to  his  rescue  just  as  the  royal  fleet  was  nearly  swamped 
by  the  sudden  opening  of  the  sluices,  which  kept  back  the 
swift  waters  of  the  Helge-aae.  Ulf,  at  that  time,  had  taken 
Knud  on  board  his  own  ship  and  brought  him  safe  back  to 
Sjcelland,  while  he  left  his  men  to  help  the  Danish  seamen 
in  their  escape  from  the  pursuit  of  the  Swedes.  But  the  King, 
instead  of  feeling  grateful  for  the  services  of  Ulf,  thought  how  he 
could  get  rid  of  the  man  who  had  helped  him.  He,  however, 
begged  the  Jarl  to  come  with  him  to  his  palace  of  Roeskilde, 
and  on  the  evening  of  their  arrival  offered  to  play  chess  with 
him  as  if  they  were  still  good  friends.  In  the  course  of  the 
game  Knud  made  a  false  move  by  which  Ulf  was  able  to  take 
one  of  his  knights,  and  when  the  King  refused  to  let  this 
move  count,  and  wanted  to  have  back  his  own  man,  the  Jarl 
jumped  up  and  declared  he  would  not  go  on  with  the  game. 
The  King,  seeing  this,  cried  out,  "  The  coward  Norwegian  Ulf 
Jarl  is  running  away  !  " 

"  You  and  your  coward  Danes  would  have  run  away  still 
faster  at  the  Helge-aae,"  answered  Ulf,  "if  I  and  my  Nor- 
wegians had  not  saved  you  from  the  Swedes,  who  were  making 
ready  to  beat  you  all  like  a  pack  of  craven  hounds  ! " 

These  hasty  words  cost  the  Jarl  his  life.  Knud  brooded  that 
night  on  the  insult  he  had  received,  and  early  the  next  morning 
went  forth  from  his  bed-chamber,  and  called  to  him  one  of 
his  body-guard  who  was  at  the  door.  "  Go  and  kill  Ulf  Jarl,"  he 
cried,  in  angry  haste.  "  My  Lord-King,  I  dare  not !  "  answered 
the  man  ;  "  Ulf  Jar!  is  even  now  at  prayers  before  the  altar  of 
the  church  of  St.  Lucius  ! "  Knud  paused  a  moment  and  then, 
seeing  a  young  Norwegian  man-at-arms  who  had  been  in  his 
service  since  his  boyhood,  he  turned  towards  him,  saying,  "  I 
command  thee,  Olaf,  to  go  to  the  church  and  to  thrust  thy 
sword  through  the  Jarl's  body  !"  The  youth  obeyed,  and  the 
Jarl  was  slain  before  the  altar-rails  of  the  church  of  St.  Lucius. 
Then,  as  usual  with  King  Knud,  he  began  to  lament  his  crime, 
and  to  show  signs  of  the  deepest  remorse  ;  in  proof  of  which 
he  paid  over  to  his  sister  Estrid,  the  widow  of  Ulf,  as  a  blood- 


54  SC AND  IN  A  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 

fine  a  large  sum  of  money,  and  gave  her  two  villages  which  she 
left  at  her  death  to  the  church  in  which  her  husband  had  been 
killed.  Knud,  moreover,  took  his  nephew  Svend,  Ulf's  eldest 
son,  under  his  special  care  and  caused  him  to  be  brought  up 
as  one  of  his  own  children.  After  a  time  the  widowed  Estrid 
married  Robert,  Duke  of  Normandy,  the  brother  of  Queen 
Emma  ;  but  this  prince,  who  was  long  known  as  "  Robert  le 
Diable,"  on  account  of  the  many  evil  deeds  ascribed  to  him, 
did  not  like  the  new  wife  whom  his  brother-in-law  King  Knud 
had  given  him,  and  without  much  regard  to  her  feelings,  he  sent 
her  back  to  the  English  court  very  soon  after  their  marriage. 
This  Duke  Robert  was  the  father  of  William  of  Normandy, 
who  in  1066  came  over  to  England  and  conquered  the  land. 

Knud's  Death,— When  King  Knud  died,  in  1035,  the  master 
of  six  so-called  kingdoms — namely,  England,  Denmark,  Sweden. 
Norway,  Scotland,  and  Cumberland— he  was  not  more  than 
thirty-six,  which  was  about  the  age  of  William  the  Conqueror 
when  he  won  the  crown  of  England  by  his  victory  at  the  battle 
of  Hastings.  This  was  an  early  age  at  which  to  have  made  so 
many  conquests,  for  Denmark  was  the  only  one  of  his  states 
that  he  had  not  gained  for  himself  by  force  of  arms  ;  and  when 
we  read  of  all  that  he  did  to  improve  the  condition  of  his 
subjects,  aud  of  the  quiet  and  order  which  reigned  in  England 
under  him,  we  cannot  wonder  at  the  praise  given  to  him  by  the 
writers  of  his  time.  Nor  can  we  help  sharing  in  the  surprise 
which  they  express  that  a  prince,  who  like  Knud  had  been 
born  a  pagan  and  had  grown  to  manhood  without  receiving  any 
instruction,  should  in  so  short  a  time  have  become  so  learned, 
that  when  he  went  to  Rome  to  receive  the  Pope's  blessing,  his 
knowledge  and  wisdom  were  the  admiration  of  all  who  saw  him 
and  spoke  with  him.  None  of  his  sons  had  his  talents,  and 
none  of  them  lived  long  enough  to  enjoy  their  great  heritage 
beyond  a  few  years.  When  Knud  conquered  Norway,  in  1030, 
he  had  placed  his  son  Svcnd  on  the  throne  ;  but  the  miscon- 
duct of  this  youth,  who  was  only  fifteen  years  old  at  the  time 
his  father  raised  him  to  this  great  dignity,  had  roused  the  angry 
spirit  of  the  people,  who  drove  him  out  of  the  country  and 
obliged  him  to  hasten  to  England  to  ask  for  help  from  his  father. 
Before  he  landed,  in  1035,  Knud  was  dead,  and  young  Svend 


DENMARK  IN  EARL  Y  TIMES.  55 

met  with  no  welcome  from  his  stepmother,  Queen  Emma,  who 
was  in  great  anxiety  about  her  own  son,  his  half-brother 
Harthaknud,  then  absent  in  Denmark;  for  although  she  had 
sent  to  inform  him  of  his  father's  death,  and  urged  him  to 
return  with  all  speed  to  England  and  secure  the  crown  for 
himself,  he  lingered  in  the  North  and  paid  no  respect  to  her 
wishes  and  warnings. 

Knucfs  Sons,  1035-1042. — But  while  Harthaknud  loitered 
away  his  time  in  Denmark,  his  half-brother  Harald,  known  to 
us  in  English  history  as  Harold  Harefoot,  was  crowned  king  of 
England,  only,  however,  to  enjoy  a  short  reign  of  four  years, 
for  he  died  in  1039,  and  then  both  the  Saxons  and  Danes  in 
England  were  eager  to  have  Harthaknud  for  their  king. 

Harthaknud,  1039-1042. — Harthaknud  had  excited  greater 
hopes  than  he  fulfilled,  and  during  his  short  reign  he  and  his 
mother  Queen  Emma  seemed  to  think  more  of  securing  ven- 
geance on  their  own  private  foes  than  in  doing  much  for  the 
good  of  the  people.  One  of  his  first  cares  had  been  to  reward 
the  seamen  of  the  ships  which  had  conducted  him  from  Holland 
to  England  at  the  time  of  his  brother  Harald's  death,  and  he  gave 
great  displeasure  to  the  Anglo-Saxons  by  demanding  a  sum  of 
thirty-two  thousand  pounds  of  silver  for  the  fleet  and  army. 
Danish  soldiers  were  sent  through  the  country  to  collect  this  tax, 
and  the  insolence  with  which  these  men  performed  their  duty  led 
to  constant  disturbances.  The  King  favoured  them  so  greatly 
that  Anglo-Saxons  had  to  submit  to  insults  of  every  kind  at 
their  hands ;  and  if  a  number  of  Saxons  saw  one  Dane  coming 
they  had  to  wait  till  he  had  passed,  as  the  slightest  assertion  of 
independence  on  their  part  was  sure  to  be  visited  upon  them  in 
some  unpleasant  way  or  other.  The  liberality  which  the  King 
and  his  mother  showed  to  the  clergy,  by  bestowing  numerous 
valuable  estates  on  churches  and  monasteries  to  found  masses 
for  the  soul  of  King  Knud,  secured  them  from  ecclesiastical 
reproof,  and  gained  over  to  their  cause  some  of  the  highest 
prelates  in  the  kingdom,  who  did  not  disdain  to  take  part  in 
the  most  undignified  acts  at  the  command  of  the  sovereign. 
Thus,  when  Harthaknud  immediately  after  his  coronation  deter- 
mined, by  his  mother's  advice,  to  give  a  public  proof  of  his 
hatred  for  his  half-brother  King  Harold  Harefoot,  he  entrusted 


5  6  SC AND  IN  A  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 

to  ^Elfric,  Archbishop  of  York,  the  unworthy  office  of  going 
with  the  executioner  Thrond  and  others  to  disinter  the  body  of 
Harold,  and  see  the  head  cut  off  and  cast  into  the  Thames. 

This  act  gave  great  offence  to  the  people  of  London,  and  in 
order  to  try  to  regain  the  good  will  of  the  Anglo-Saxons,  the 
young  King  began  to  show  much  favour  to  those  who  were 
known  to  have  been  the  friends  of  the  former  princes.  He  even 
threatened  to  punish  all  who  could  be  proved  to  have  taken 
part  in  the  murder  of  the  yEtheling  ^Elfred,  his  mother  Queen 
Emma's  son  by  her  first  husband,  King  /Ethelred  the  Unready. 
It  was  well  known  that  this  young  prince  had  been  put  to  death 
by  the  orders  of  Earl  Godwine ;  and  this  rich  and  powerful 
noble,  fearing  that  the  young  King,  on  pretence  of  avenging  his 
half-brother,  would  have  him  killed  for  the  sake  of  seizing  upon 
his  great  wealth,  came  forward  of  his  own  accord  to  swear  upon 
his  oath  that,  in  all  he  had  done  against  the  yEtheling,  he  had 
only  obeyed  the  orders  of  the  King's  father,  his  master  Knud. 
At  the  same  time  he  begged  Harthaknud  to  accept,  as  a  token 
of  his  love  and  duty,  a  small  gift  that  he  had  caused  to  be  made 
ready  for  him.  "When  Harthaknud  saw  this  "small  gift,"'  he 
said  no  more  of  punishing  his  half-brother's  murderers,  but 
showed  greater  favour  than  ever  to  Earl  (loclwine.  The  present 
that  had  worked  this  change  in  the  King's  feelings  was  indeed 
worthy  of  some  handsome  reward,  and  must  have  cost  the 
wealthy  giver  a  large  sum  of  money,  for  it  was  the  most  splendid 
ship  that  could  be  made  in  those  times,  and  besides  being 
richly  gilt  and  fitted  up  with  finely-carved  seats  for  the  rowers, 
had  brightly- painted  sails  and  a  gold-headed  beak  or  prow.  It 
was  manned  by  eighty  strong  and  well-grown  soldiers,  each  one 
of  whom  bore  on  either  arm  a  golden  bracelet  of  sixteen  ounces 
in  weight,  and  on  his  head  a  gilt  helmet.  They  had  also  gilded 
swords  and  Danish  battle-axes  inlaid  and  bound  with  bands 
and  bosses  of  pure  gold.  This  was  indeed  a  most  costly  gift, 
but  one  which  needed  a  rich  man  to  be  the  receiver  as  well  as 
the  giver. 

Denmark  bartered. — Harthaknud's  sudden  death  in  1042  put 
an  end  to  the  short  rule  of  the  descendants  of  King  Knud  in 
England,  and  at  once  split  up  the  great  empire  which  he  had 
founded.  Before  the  Danes  could  take  measures  to  decide 
whom  they  should  choose  to  fill  the  vacant  throne,  they  learnt, 


DENMARK  IN  EARL  Y  TIMES.  57 

that  by  a.  compact,  entered  into  between  the  late  King  Hartha- 
knud  and  Magnus  the  Good  of  Norway,  the  territories  of  either 
prince  were  to  fall  to  the  survivor.  Thus,  in  case  Magnus  had 
died  first,  the  crown  of  Norway  was  to  have  gone  to  the  king 
of  England  and  Denmark,  but  now  that  he  survived  Hartha- 
knud,  he  had  the  right  to  come  forward  and  take  the  Danish 
throne.  As  soon,  therefore,  as  the  news  of  Harthaknud's  death 
reached  Norway,  Magnus  collected  a  fleet  and  sailed  over  to 
Denmark  to  advance  his  claims.  The  people,  who  knew  him  to 
be  a  just,  although  a  severe  ruler,  and  who  had  no  prince  among 
them  to  whom  they  cared  to  give  the  Danish  crown,  were 
content  to  accept  him  in  spite  of  the  strange  way  in  which  he 
had  been  thrust  upon  them  ;  and  thus  it  came  to  pass  that  for 
five  years,  from  1042  to  1047,  Denmark  was  joined  with  Norway 
under  one  king. 

Magnus  was  much  beloved  by  the  Norwegians,  to  whom  he 
gave  the  first  book  of  written  laws  that  they  had  had.  He 
proved,  also,  a  very  kind  friend  to  young  Svend  the  nephew  of 
Knud,  but  he  did  not  meet  with  the  return  he  deserved ;  for 
after  he  had  made  Svend  Jarl  of  Denmark  and  trusted  him  to 
rule  in  his  name,  that  prince  joined  the  enemies  of  Magnus, 
among  whom  was  the  King's  own  uncle,  Harald,  and  made  war 
upon  him.  More  than  once  King  Magnus  forgave  Svend, 
but  that  did  not  make  him  more  faithful ;  and  after  having 
stirred-up  revolts  from  time  to  time,  he  again  raised  an  army 
against  his  friend  and  gave  the  royal  troops  battle.  Svend  was 
beaten,  and  when  he  saw  his  best  men  scattered  and  routed,  he 
took  to  flight,  on  which  the  King  went  in  pursuit  of  him  ;  but  as 
Magnus  was  riding  off  the  field  of  battle  a  hare  crossed  the 
path  and  startled  his  horse,  by  which  he  was  thrown  to  the  ground, 
and  so  much  injured  by  the  fall,  that  he  died  in  a  few  hours. 
Before  his  death  he  caused  Svend  to  be  brought  before  him,  and 
raising  himself  up,  he  bade  all  present  to  bear  witness  that  he  gave 
back  to  him  all  the  rights  to  the  crown  of  Denmark  which  he  had 
received  from  the  late  King  Harthaknud,  and  that  he  chose  his 
uncle  Harald  to  rule  over  Norway  after  him.  Magnus  was  much 
beloved  by  his  subjects,  and  both  the  Danes  and  Norwegians 
showed  themselves  willing  to  comply  with  his  wishes  ;  and  thus, 
while  Harald  had  to  content  himself  with  Norway,  Svend  Kstrid- 
sen,  the  nephew  of  Knud,  became  king  of  Denmark  in  1047. 


CHAPTER  V. 

SCANDINAVIA     IN     EARLY     TIMES 

Little  known  of  Sweden  and  Norway  before  the  introduction  of  Christianity 
— The  Danes  the  best  known —  The  reason  of  this — How  the  Goths  were 
first  led  to  settle  in  Sweden— Odin's  arrival — His  conflict  with  the  King 
of  the  Goths — The  worship  of  two  Odins — The  Ynglingar— Their 
descent  from  Odin — How  they  lose  Sweden— Ingjald — The  Uppsala 
burning  of  six  Small  Kings — The  Braga-cup  oath — Ingjald  kills 
himself — Olaf  the  "Tree  Hewer"  clears  the  border  lands — His  successors 
found  the  kingdom  of  Norway — The  Ynglinga  saga— Religion  of 
Swedes  and  Norwegians — King-pontiffs — Skaania — Ivar  Vidfaclme  the 
great  conqueror— Danes  and  Swedes  claim  the  same  great  men — Reason 
why  we  know  so  little  of  Sweden  in  early  times — Founders  of  Russia 
came  from  Sv,reden — Rurik — Daring  of  Norwegian  sea-men — Their 
discoveries,  and  what  led  to  them — Stern  rule  of  Harald  Haarfager — 
Struggles  in  Norway — "Strand-hug"  —  Gaungo  Ilrolfr,  or  Rollo 
"the  Walker" — Settlement  of  Normandy — Danish  settlements  in 
Scotland  and  Ireland— The  men  of  Lochlin — Harald' s  death — llakon 
^Ethelstane-fostre  — Hakon  placed  on  the  knees  of  King  ^Ethelstan 
— Splendid  gift  of  golden-beaked  ship — Hakon's  good  training  in 
England. 


TART   I. 
SWEDEN    AND    NORWAY. 

State  of  Sweden  and  Norway.- — BEFORE  we  enter  upon  the 
reign  of  Knud's  nephew  and  successor,  Svend  Estridsen,  whose 
descendants  have  ruled  over  Denmark  from  that  early  time 
(1047)  till  the  present  day,  we  must  learn  something  of  Sweden 
and  Norway,  which  were  very  little  known  to  the  rest  of  the 
world  before  the  beginning  of  the  eleventh  century. 

This  may  have  been  owing  to  their  greater  distance  from 
Christian  civilized  lands,  or  to  the  rigour  of  the  climate,  which 
closed  their  harbours  for  many  months  in  the  year,  and  made 


SCANDINA  VIA  IN  EARL  Y  TIMES.  59 

those  rugged  parts  of  Scandinavia  unattractive  to  strangers. 
The  Danes  were,  in  fact,  for  many  ages  the  only  one  of  the 
Northern  nations  known  to  the  Christians  of  Europe,  and 
although  it  is  very  probable  that  Swedes,  and  after  a  time 
Norwegians  also,  took  part  in  the  great  Danish  invasions  of 
England  and  of  the  Prankish  empire,  they  were  all  included  by 
the  people  of  those  countries  under  the  common  name  of 
Northmen,  or  Danes.  And,  as  all  the  three  northern  nations 
continued  to  speak  the  "  Donsk  tunga  "  (Danish  tongue),  to 
follow  the  same  forms  of  religion,  and  to  show  the  same  spirit 
of  fierceness,  courage  and  daring  long  after  they  had  separated 
and  formed  distinct  kingdoms,  it  was  no  wonder  foreigners 
should  have  supposed  them  to  be  only  one  people.  This  idea 
was,  moreover,  quite  correct,  for  we  now  know  that,  in  spite  of 
their  divisions  into  Danes,  Swedes  and  Norwegians,  the  North- 
men were  only  one  people,  tracing  their  descent  from  the  same 
common  Gothic  forefathers  who  had  come  from  the  far  East, 
and  spread  themselves  over  the  islands  and  the  most  fruitful 
coastlands  of  the  Baltic. 

The  Goths  probably  stayed  in  those  more  genial  parts  of 
Scandinavia  as  long  as  their  leaders  found  space  enough  for 
themselves  and  their  followers,  but  when  their  numbers  in- 
creased, and  "  the  Small  Kings  "  began  fighting  among  them- 
selves and  interfering  with  each  other,  the  younger  chiefs  with 
the  restlessness  of  their  race  set  forth  in  search  of  new  homes. 
Some  such  causes,  it  is  believed,  led  to  the  settlement  of  the 
southern  parts  of  Sweden  by  the  Goths  from  Ey-gotaland,  or 
the  Danish  Islands. 

In  the  old  Swedish  legends  it  is  related  that  Odin  founded 
the  empire  of  the  Svea,  and  built  a  great  temple  at  a  spot  called 
Sigtuna,  near  Lake  Maelar,  in  the  present  province  of  Upland, 
which  was  known  by  the  Northmen  under  the  name  of  the 
"  lesser  Svithjdd  "  to  distinguish  it  from  that  "  greater  Svithjdd," 
or  Scythia,  from  which  they  believed  that  he  had  led  his  fol- 
lowers. When  Odin  arrived  with  his  twelve  pontiffs,  or  chief 
priests,  he  is  said  to  have  found  that  great  part  of  the  land 
was  occupied  by  a  people  who,  like  himself,  had  come  from 
Svithjdd,  but  in  such  long  past  ages  that  according  to  their 
own  account  no  one  could  fix  the  time.  These  people,  who 


60  SCANDINA  VI AN  HISTOR  \. 

called  themselves  "  Gota,"  or  "  Gauta,"  Goths,  and  boasted 
that  they  had  driven  all  the  dwarfs,  giants  and  "  Fenni "  1  of 
the  country  back  into  the  mountains  and  dreary  wastes,  were  so 
strong  that  Odin  was  forced  to  make  a  compact  with  their  king 
Gylfe,  before  he  could  settle  in  the  land.  But  after  these  two 
great  chiefs  had  proved  each  other's  strength  in  a  trial  of  magic, 
they  lived  together  on  friendly  terms,  and  Sweden  was  thence- 
forth divided  into  the  two  free  nations  of  the  "  Svea,"  Swedes, 
and  the  "  Gota,"  Goths.  The  Svea  were  governed  after  Odin's 
death  by  his  pontiffs,  who  had  charge  of  his  temple  at  Sigtuna  ; 
and  this  tribe  by  degrees  grew  so  much  more  powerful  than 
the  Gota,  that  they  were  allowed  to  take  the  lead  in  all  public 
matters,  and  their  rulers  were  looked  up  to  as  chief  kings  by  all 
the  "  Smaa-kongar "  of  the  Goths  as  well  as  Swedes.  In 
these  and  other  legends  of  the  same  kind  it  is  not  easy  to  dis- 
cover whether  the  old  Swedes  honoured  Odin  as  a  god,  or  as 
a  mere  human  chief  of  their  race ;  but  it  has  been  supposed  by 
some  writers  that  long  after  the  first  Gothic  invaders  brought 
his  worship  into  Sweden,  a  second  band  of  the  same  tribe  may 
have  come,  under  a  leader  called  by  his  name,  who  set  up  a 
newer  form  of  faith,  which  gained  such  hold  over  the  minds 
of  the  people  that  in  time  they  came  to  worship  the  two  Odins 
under  one  common  faith. 

The  Ynglingar.  • — •  Like  the  Danes  the  Swedes  traced  the 
descent  of  their  early  kings  back  to  Odin,  through  his  successor 
in  Sweden,  the  pontiff  IXjord,  whose  son  Frey-Yngve  was  the 
founder  of  the  royal  race  of  the  Ynglingar.  We  are  told  that 
this  prince,  who  built  a  great  temple  to  Odin  on  the  ruins  of 
the  more  ancient  one  of  Sigtuna,  and  called  it  Upp-Sala  (or  the 
High  Halls),  was  so  much  beloved  by  his  subjects,  that  when 
he  died  his  family  did  not  venture  to  proclaim  his  death  lest 
trouble  should  arise  among  the  Svea,  but  laid  his  body  within 
a  carefully-built  stone  mound,  to  which  they  continued  lor  three 
years  to  carry  all  the  gifts  and  annual  offerings  of  the  people. 
They  did  not  burn  the  body  according  to  their  ancient  custom, 
because  it  had  been  foretold  that  as  long  as  Frey  Yngve  stayed 
in  Lesser  SvithjoM  all  would  go  well  with  the  land  ;  but  when 
they  found,  at  the  end  ot  three  years,  that  the  seasons  continued 
1  The  F.iiiis  and  Lapps. 


SCANDINAVIA  IN  EARLY  TIMES.  61 

to  be  good,  they  ventured  to  make  known  his  death,  and  the 
people,  in  gratitude  for  all  he  had  done  for  them  on  earth, 
placed  him  among  their  gods  and  prayed  to  him  for  peace  and 
plenty. 

This  king,  Frey-Yngve,  was  counted  as  the  last  of  the  gods, 
but  his  descendants  continued  to  rule  over  the  Svea  for  several 
generations  till  enmity  sprang  up  among  the  different  members 
of  the  royal  house.  Then  the  Ynglingar  lost  all  power  over 
the  Small  Kings  of  Sweden  through  the  evil  deeds  of  one  of 
the  race,  called  Ingjald  and  surnamed  "  Ill-raada,"  the  Bad 
Ruler.  This  prince,  who  was  a  cruel  and  crafty  man,  drew  upon 
himself  the  anger  of  the  people  by  burning  alive  six  Small  Kings 
on  pretence  of  doing  honour  to  his  father,  the  good  King 
Anund.  His  treachery  on  this  occasion  was  equal  to  his 
cruelty  for,  in  order  to  get  as  many  kings  into  his  power  as 
possible,  he  had  sent  messengers  to  all  those  of  his  kinsmen  who 
were  "  Smaa-kongar,"  and  begged  that  they  would  show  their 
respect  for  the  late  King  by  attending  his  grave-feast. 

Six  of  the  Small  Kings  obeyed  the  summons,  and  were 
according  to  ancient  usage  invited  to  take  their  places  on  the 
high-seat  at  the  end  of  the  hall,  which  in  the  dwellings  of  the 
Northmen  was  always  reserved  for  the  master  of  the  house  and 
his  most  honoured  guests.  Ingjald,  as  the  giver  of  the  feast, 
sat  on  a  low  stool  at  their  feet,  since  it  was  not  considered 
right  for  the  heir  to  take  his  father's  seat  till  the  grave-feast  was 
over  and  the  last  toast  had  been  drunk  to  the  memory  of  the 
dead.  When  his  turn  came  to  drink  from  the  "  Braga,"  or 
"  Good-health  "  horn,  he  arose  to  his  feet,  and  said  he  claimed 
the  right  of  making  a  sacred  vow  before  he  drained  the  cup. 
Such  vows  made  in  the  act  of  drinking  the  last  "  Braga  "  or 
toast  to  the  dead,  were  held  to  be  more  binding  than  any 
others.  And  when  the  feast  was  over,  he  caused  the  six  kings 
to  be  seized  and  burnt  alive,  on  the  plea  that  the  gods  had  con- 
strained him  to  swear  that  he  would  sacrifice  them  all  in 
memory  of  his  father.  This  grave  feast,  known  as  the 
"Uppsala  Burning,"  was  soon  followed  by  another  burning  even 
worse  than  the  former,  if  the  numbers  of  the  viclirns  be  con 
sidered.  In  this  second  burning,  the  King  and  his  wicked 
daughter,  Aasa,  perished  in  the  flames  which  they  had  them 


62  SCANDINA  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 


selves  kindled  to  escape  from  the  vengeance  of  their  enemies. 
For  having  been  warned  that  young  Ivar  of  Skaania  was 
drawing  near  to  avenge  the  death  of  his  father,  Halfdan,  who 
was  one  of  the  six  kings  burnt  at  Uppsala,  Ingjald  and  his 
daughter  set  fire  to  their  palace,  and  after  having  drugged  the 
mead  of  the  servants  in  order  to  prevent  an  alarm  being  given 
and  closed  the  doors  while  the  men  were  buried  in  sleep,  they 
and  all  who  were  in  the  building  were  consumed  to  ashes. 

After  these  events,  the  Svea  would  have  no  more  of  the 
Ynglingar  for  their  kings,  and  Ingj aid's  children  were  driven  oui 
of  the  country.  His  eldest  son  Olaf,  fearing  the  anger  of  the 
people,  fled  with  a  few  companions  beyond  the  mountains  to 
the  dense  forests,  which  then  covered  the  border-land  between 
the  present  Sweden  and  Norway,  and  began  to  clear  the  ground 
by  burning  the  trees,  in  order  to  make  it  fit  for  human  habita- 
tion. This  Olaf  was  known  as  "  Tratelje"  or  the  Tree-hewer, 
and  the  land  which  he  cleared  was  thenceforth  called  Vermland. 
in  memory  of  his  having  warmed  it  by  setting  fire  to  the  great 
forests.  Like  his  father  Ingjald,  this  prince  also  met  his  death 
by  burning ;  for  when  some  years  afterwards  his  people  suffered 
from  famine,  they  laid  the  blame  on  Olaf  and  forced  him  to 
submit  to  be  burnt  at  the  great  Sacrifice  to  Odin,  in  order  that 
the  god,  in  return  for  a  royal  victim,  might  avert  the  evil  that 
had  come  upon  them.  Odin  was  believed  to  have  accepted 
the  offering  made  to  him,  as  fruitful  years  followed  the  sacrifice 
of  Olaf,  whose  descendants  passed  over  from  Vermland  into 
Norway,  and  became  the  founders  of  that  kingdom. 

Ynglinga  Saga. — Such  are  the  accounts  given  of  the  rise  of 
the  Swedish  and  Norwegian  monarchies  in  the  legend,  known 
as  the  Ynglinga  Saga,  which  was  written  down  by  scribes 
in  Iceland  from  the  old  songs  brought  over  to  that  country 
by  the  early  settlers  and  handed  down  by  them  to  their 
children,  and  through  them  to  later  generations.  This  and 
other  sagas,  which  related  to  the  rise  of  the  royal  races  of 
Sweden  and  Norway,  were  no  doubt  based  on  real  events, 
which  in  the  course  of  time  were  mixed  up  with  many  fables. 
We  owe  our  knowledge  of  them  to  King  llarald  Haarfager,  for 
they  were  collected  and  recited  aloud  by  famous  skalds  at  the 
court  of  this  King,  who  reigned  over  Norway  between  863  and 


SCANDINA  VIA  IN  EARL  Y  TIMES.  63 

933,  and  boasted  of  being  an  Ynglingar  through  his  descent 
from  Olaf  Traetelje,  the  Tree-hewer. 

Thus  all  three  of  the  royal  houses  of  Scandinavia  claimed 
Odin  as  their  founder ;  for  although  Gota-land,  or  the  land  of  the 
Goths,  was  not  reckoned  as  part  of  the  monarchy  of  the  Svea, 
it  was  admitted  to  have  been  first  settled  by  "Got"  or  "  Gaut," 
from  whom  it  had  derived  its  name  and  by  whom  it  had  been 
raised  into  a  free  state.  And  as  Got  and  Gaut  were  only  other 
names  of  Odin,  the  Goths  of  Sweden  thought  they  had  as  good 
a  right  as  their  neighbours,  the  Svea,  to  count  the  chief  god  01 
their  religion  as  the  founder  of  their  nation. 

The  Swedes — under  which  name  are  included  both  the  Gota 
and  Svea — and  the  Norwegians  retained  their  old  faith  much 
longer  than  the  Danes,  and  the  few  glimpses  which  we  catch 
from  the  sagas  of  their  character  and  conduct  in  those  early 
times  show  us  how  little  regard  they  paid  to  life.  In  Denmark 
human  sacrifices  were  only  very  rarely  practised,  but  in  Sweden, 
where  they  are  said  to  have  been  enjoined  as  a  religious  duty 
by  Frey-Yngve,  the  first  of  the  Ynglingar  race,  they  appear  to 
have  been  very  frequent.  We  even  read  of  one  Swedish  King 
called  Ane,  who  tried  to  gain  from  Odin  length  of  life  from 
year  to  year  by  offering  up  one  of  his  sons  at  each  annual 
.sacrifice  to  the  god.  According  to  this  saga,  when  nine  of  his 
children  had  thus  been  slain,  the  Svea,  in  spite  of  their  dread  of 
Odin  and  of  the  King  who  was  his  high  priest,  rose  in  anger 
against  Ane,  and  saved  the  tenth  and  last  of  his  sons  from 
sharing  the  fate  of  his  brothers. 

Pont  iff- Kings. — Throughout  all  the  North  every  king  was  the 
pontiff  or  high  priest  of  his  people,  and  one  of  the  most  impor- 
tant and  sacred  of  his  duties  was  to  offer  annual  sacrifices  within 
the  temples  of  his  kingdom,  and  this  gave  some  of  the  northern 
kings  greater  power  than  others.  Thus  in  Denmark,  as  we  have 
seen,  where  the  chief  temple  to  Odin  was  at  Lejre  or  Ledra  in 
Sjcelland,  Gorm  as  the  pontiff-king  of  that  district  was  looked  up 
to  by  the  neighbouring  small  kings  and  enabled  to  securea  strong 
influence  over  them,  which  helped  him  greatly  in  his  efforts  to 
make  himself  king  of  all  Denmark  It  was  the  same  in  Sweden, 
where  the  Ynglingar  who  had  charge  of  Odin's  chief  temple  at 
Uppsala  were,  from  the  first,  head  kings  of  the  country,  just  as 


( -4  SCANDINA  VIA  .V  //AS'  TOR  Y. 

the  kings  of  Lund,  in  whose  territories  there  was  another  great 
temple,  early  made  themselves  head  kings  in  Skaania.  The 
province  of  Skaania  in  South  Sweden,  which  took  its  name 
from  the  old  northern  word  "  Skaun,"  a  swampy  land,  was 
before  Christian  times  one  of  the  best  known  of  the  northern 
states ;  for  not  far  from  its  capital,  Lund,  which  was  enclosed 
with  high  sharply-spiked  walls,  a  large  trading  port  had  sprung 
up  near  the  temple  to  Odin.  The  position  of  this  ancient  pagan 
stronghold  on  the  eastern  shore  of  the  Sound,  leading  into  the 
Baltic,  made  it  a  very  important  and  convenient  harbour  for  the 
trading  or  plundering  fleets,  which  every  summer  passed  to  and 
from  the  lands  of  Scandinavia  and  the  rich  states  of  southern 
Europe.  Here  many  of  the  northern  vikingar  kept  the  wares 
and  gold  and  silver,  which  they  had  collected  on  their  viking 
expeditions,  paying  toll  to  the  king  of  the  district  for  leave  to 
put  into  the  harbour,  and  wait  there  with  their  treasures  till  the 
season  came  round  for  darting  forth  again  in  search  of  fresh 
booty.  Long  before  the  ninth  century,  when  King  Gorm  of 
Denmark  took  possession  of  this  rich  province  and  joined  it  to 
his  other  Danish  lands,  Skaania  had  been  a  free  state,  ruled 
over  by  kings  of  its  own,  a  few  of  whom  gained  for  themselves 
great  renown.  Amongst  these  there  was  none  more  celebrated 
than  "  Ivar  Vidfadme"  or  the  "  Far-stretching,"  who  was  made 
chief  King  over  the  Svea,  as  well  as  the  Gota,  after  the  death 
of  Ingjald  "  Ill-raade,"  the  last  of  the  Ynglingar  in  Sweden. 

This  Ivar,  who  is  believed  to  have  lived  in  the  seventh  cen- 
tury, plays  a  great  part  in  the  sagas  of  the  Icelanders,  for  he  is 
there  said  to  have  conquered  Sweden  and  Denmark,  a  large 
portion  of  the  lands  of  the  Saxons  and  one-fifth  of  all  England.1 
IJut  on  the  other  hand  Saxo-Grammaticus,  the  Danish  historian, 
does  not  even  mention  his  name  among  the  rulers  of  Den- 
mark, nor  do  Anglo-Saxon  records  make  any  reference  to  him. 
The  Danes,  however,  speak  of  him  as  the  grandfather  of  their 
King  Harald  Hildetand,  of  whose  defeat  in  his  old  age  by  the 
young  Swedish  king.  Sigurd  Ring,  at  the  battle  of  Uravalla,  we 
have  read  in  a  former  chapter. 

1  Ivnr's- daughter.  Audur,  was  married  to  Rcrik,  n  King  of  Lejrc,  and  their 
son  Ilarald,  surnamed  IliHetand,  became  in  t.inv  Kiny;  <>f  Denmark  and 
Sweden. 


SCANDINA  VIA  IN  EARL  Y  TJMES.  65 


In  this,  as  in  other  periods  of  Northern  history,  the  kings 
and  heroes  of  Denmark  and  Sweden  are  so  intermingled  that 
it  is  often  impossible  to  decide  to  which  nation  we  must 
refer  any  one  of  them.  The  Danish  and  Icelandic  sagas 
generally  agree  in  making  all  great  northern  chiefs  Danes 
or  Norwegians,  whilst  the  Swedes  as  often  claim  them  for 
their  own  country.  This  is  especially  the  case  in  regard  to  the 
favourite  demi-god  Stserkodder,  and  to  Ragnar,  called  "  Lod- 
brog"  of  the  Leather  Leggings,  whose  numerous  sons  or 
grandsons  ranked  amongst  the  most  daring  and  fiercest  of  the 
vikingar  of  the  ninth  century.1  The  history  of  Sweden  is, 
moreover,  so  confused  and  so  shrouded  in  fable  before  the 
time  of  Olaf,  "the  Lap-king,"  who  reigned  from  993  to  1024, 
and  was  the  first  Christian  king  of  the  Swedes  and  Goths,  that 
it  would  be  quite  useless  to  try  to  give  a  continuous  account 
of  what  happened  in  that  kingdom  before  the  establishment 
of  Christianity.  Another  cause  of  our  great  ignorance  of 
Swedish  history  in  those  early  times  was,  no  doubt,  that  the 
Swedes,  instead  of  fitting  out  great  fleets  of  rowing  and  sailing 
boats  year  after  year,  like  the  other  Scandinavian  nations,  to 
attack  the  Southern  lands  of  Europe,  turned  their  arms  against 
the  Finns,  Quens,  Lapps  and  Wends,  who  lived  north  and  east 
of  them,  and  whom  they  could  reach  by  crossing  the  mountains 
and  frozen  gulfs  which  separated  them  from  those  remote  tribes. 
In  this  manner  they  were  kept  out  of  contact  with  the  more 
civilized  nations  of  Europe,  who  hardly  knew  of  their  existence 
till  the  middle  ages. 


PART  it 
NORTHERN     CONQUESTS. 

Russia  Peopled. — The  people  of  Sweden  early  gave  the 
name  of  "  Vanen,"  or  Wends,  to  all  nations  living  to  the  east  of 
them,  and  they  also  called  the  Finnish  tribes  "Jotunar,"  which 
was  the  same  word  that  they  applied  to  the  giants  of  their  my- 
thology. The  Finns  on  the  other  hand  have  continued  from 

1  His  name  is  spelt  Regncr  by  the  Danes  ;  see  chap.  ii. 

F 


66  SCANDINA  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 

ancient  times  till  the  present  day  to  call  the  Russians  "  Wdna- 
laiset"  (Wends),  and  the  Swedes  "  Ruotsalaiset"  (Russians) 
from  Roden  or  Rosen,  the  ancient  name  for  the  part  of  Sweden 
nearest  southern  Finland.  This  mixing  up  of  different  names 
for  the  same  people  renders  it  very  difficult  to  follow  the 
accounts  of  the  wars  and  conquests  which  the  Swedes  are  said 
to  have  made  in  early  times  amongst  the  Finns,  Wends,  and 
Russians.  We  know,  however,  that  the  greater  number  of  the 
Varingjar,  or  Northern  rovers,  who  passed  through  Garderike, 
the  present  Russia,  on  their  way  to  Miklagaard  (Constantinople), 
were  Swedes,  while  it  was  from  the  name  Ruotsalaiset  or 
Russians,  which  the  older  inhabitants  gave  them,  that  the  country 
became  known  in  after  times  as  Russia. 

According  to  Russian  chroniclers,  it  was  in  the  year  859  that 
a  band  of  the  Varingjar,  who  had  come  over  the  sea  and 
were  under  a  leader  called  Rurik,  first  appeared  in  Garderike, 
where  they  subdued  all  the  Slaves  and  Finns  whom  they  met 
on  their  march.  After  a  time,  however,  these  older  inhabitants 
of  Garderike  took  courage  to  attack  the  small  number  of 
strangers  who  were  making  themselves  masters  of  their  country, 
and  drove  them  out.  Then  Rurik  and  his  men  made  haste  to 
follow  their  companions  who  had  pushed  straight  on  towards 
Greece,  and  for  the  next  two  years  Garderike  was  left  clear  of  the 
Northmen.  But  at  the  end  of  that  time  the  Slaves  and  Finns 
having  found  that  they  were  worse  treated  by  their  own  chiefs 
than  they  had  been  by  the  strangers,  sent  messengers  into 
Greece  to  the  Varingjar,  whom  they  knew  both  under  the  names 
of  "  Rhos  "  and  "  Ruses."  "  Our  land  is  large,"  they  said,  "  and 
blessed  with  everything  good  for  man  ;  all  we  need  is  order  ; 
come  then,  be  our  princes,  and  rule  over  us."  On  receiving 
this  message  the  Varingjar  took  counsel  together,  and  it  was 
decided  that  those  amongst  their  number  who  wished  to  return 
to  Garderike,  should  cast  lots  to  see  whom  Odin  would  choose 
to  be  leaders  over  the  rest. 

The  lot  fell  upon  Rurick  and  his  two  brothers,  Sineus  and 
Truvor,  and  these  men  with  their  families  and  a  numerous 
band  of  followers  left  Miklagaard  and  returned  into  the  land  of 
the  Slaves.  Rurik  chose  the  district  now  known  to  us  as  Novo- 
gorod — or  New  Town — where  he  built  a  city  which  was  thenc^ 


SCANDINA  VIA  IN  EARL  Y  TIMES.  .'-7 

forth  filled  by  the  people  of  Varingjar  origin,  while  the  old  land 
of  the  Slaves  received  the  name  of  Russia  from  the  strangers 
who  had  become  masters  of  it.  Such  is  the  account  which  the 
Russians  have  given  us  of  the  manner  in  which  their  empire 
in  early  times  ceased  to  be  wholly  Slavonic,  and  passed  under 
the  rule  of  Scandinavian  vikingar  whose  descendants  have  since 
then  composed  the  upper  classes  among  the  people. 

Ocean  Discoveries.— In  the  same  age  in  which  the  Danes  were 
hovering  on  the  coasts  of  England,  penetrating  into  the  interior 
of  Gaul  and  Germany,  and  the  Swedes  were  making  con- 
quests in  Eastern  Europe,  the  Norwegians  with  an  inborn  love 
of  adventure  were  striking  boldly  out  into  seas  where  no 
European — and  probably  no  human  being — had  ever  yet 
dipped  his  oar.  After  they  had  once  begun  their  daring 
course  of  ocean-voyages,  they  never  rested  till  they  had  moored 
their  barks  on  every  island  in  the  Northern  Seas,  and  pushed 
their  way  beyond  the  north-western  limits  of  Europe  to  that 
new  world  which  we  have  since  called  America.  Before  the 
close  of  the  ninth  century,  and  while  Alfred  the  Great  was  still 
ruling  in  England,  the  Pagan  Norwegians  of  whose  country  he 
had  learnt  something  through  the  narrative  of  the  travellers, 
Ohther  and  Wulfstan,  had  made  settlements  on  every  side  of 
his  kingdom,  in  Scotland,  Ireland,  the  Isle  of  Man,  the  Ork- 
neys, Hebrides  and  Shetland.  They  had  also  discovered 
and  peopled  Iceland  and  the  Faro  Islands,  while  before  Alfred 
died  in  901  the  north-east  of  the  present  France  had  been 
seized  on  by  their  countryman,  Rollo,  whose  descendants  in 
the  next  century  brought  back  to  England  the  power  of  the 
Northmen  from  which  he  hoped  he  had  for  ever  freed  his 
kingdom.  The  desire  of  the  Norwegians  to  make  new  settlements 
for  themselves  in  foreign  lands  during  the  latter  half  of  the  ninth 
century  was  much  stimulated  by  the  state  of  public  affairs  in  their 
own  country.  In  Norway,  as  in  the  other  Scandinavian  lands, 
the  country  had  from  the  earliest  times  been  divided  into  a  great 
number  of  districts,  ruled  over  by  Small  Kings,  and  having  each 
a  separate  "Thing,"  or  Public  Assembly,  and  a  certain  number 
of  barks  and  men-at-arms,  with  which  to  fight  or  to  defend  its 
own  frontiers.  Halfden  Svarte,  a  descendant  of  QLif  7nefe//'e,  tlu- 
"  Tree  Hewer,"  who  lived  in  the  middle  of  the  ninth  century, 

F    2 


68  SCA  NDLVA  VIA  N  HIS  TOR  Y. 

had  conquered  several  of  these  little  kingdoms  and  joined 
them  with  his  own  state  of  Vestfold.  At  his  death  in  the  year 
863,  his  son  Harald,  known  in  history  as  Haarfager,  "  the  beau- 
tiful-haired," succeeded  to  these  states,  but,  not  content  with 
his  heritage,  he  resolved  never  to  rest  till  he  had  made  himself 
sole  King  of  Norway.  In  proof  of  his  being  thoroughly  in 
earnest,  he  took  a  solemn  oath  that  he  would  neither  cut  nor 
comb  his  long  yellow  locks  till  he  had  subdued  all  the  Small 
Kings  in  the  land.  This  oath  Harald  redeemed  by  making 
himself  master  of  all  Norway  from  the  extreme  north  of  Finn- 
mark  to  the  Naes,  or  the  most  southerly  cape  on  the  Skagerage. 
According  to  the  old  sagas  he  was  urged  on  to  attempt  these 
conquests  by  his  love  for  the  beautiful  Gyda,  who  refused  to 
marry  him  as  long  as  there  was  any  other  king  in  the  land. 

The  fate  of  Norway  was  decided  in  a  great  sea-battle  fought 
in  Hafursfjord,  near  the  present  Stavanger,  where  Harald  in 
872  scattered  the  fleet  which  some  of  the  Norwegian  chiefs 
had  collected  in  the  hope  of  defeating  him,  and  forced  them 
either  to  submit  to  his  power,  or  leave  their  native  land  as  out- 
laws. Harald  followed  up  his  victory  by  imposing  a  heavy  tax 
upon  every  district  in  Norway,  and  setting  his  own  friends  over 
the  different  small  kingdoms  with  the  title  of  Jarls.  The 
severity  with  which  the  king  and  his  officers  caused  the  laws  to 
be  carried  out  against  the  rich  as  well  as  the  poor  enraged  the 
old  chiefs,  and  many  of  them  declared  that  "  rather  than  submit, 
like  low-born  churls  to  rule  and  order,  they  would  leave  their 
country."  Then  it  was  that  some  of  the  noblest  Norwegians, 
taking  their  families  and  servants  with  them,  embarked  on 
board  their  ships,  and  after  making  solemn  offerings  to  the 
gods  of  their  fathers  and  calling  down  divine  vengeance  on 
the  head  of  King  Harald,  left  their  native  land  for  ever  and 
set  sail  in  search  of  new  homes. 


SCANDINA  VIA  IN  EARL  Y  TIMES.  69 

PART  III. 
NORWEGIAN     SETTLEMENTS. 

Rollo  the  Norman. — One  of  the  most  noted  of  the  Norwegian 
families  who  were  driven  from  their  native  land  at  this  period 
was  that  of  Rognvald,  Jarl  of  Maere,  who  like  King  Harald 
claimed  to  be  descended  from  the  famous  Sigurd  Ring,  con- 
queror of  Denmark.  When  King  Harald  found  that  the  Jarl 
had  not  carried  out  against  his  own  son  Hrolf,  or  Rollo,  the 
orders  which  he  had  received  to  punish  piracy  by  death,  he 
sent  the  Princes  Gudrod  and  Halfdan  to  invade  Rognvald's 
lands  and  drive  his  family  from  their  home.  The  Jarl  Rognvald 
was  slain  in  battle,  and  his  eldest  son  Ejnar  driven  into  exile, 
while  the  younger  son  Rollo,  who  had  been  the  cause  of  the  feud 
between  the  king  and  his  family,  was  still  absent  from  Norway 
on  a  viking  cruise.  This  youth,  who  on  account  of  his  great 
stature,  which  prevented  any  horse  from  carrying  him,  was 
known  as  Gaungo  Hrolf,  or  "  the  walking  Rollo,"  was  one  of  the 
most  famous  vikingar  of  his  age,  and  noted  for  the  success  with 
which  he  followed  the  old  northern  practice  of  "  Strand-Hug^'  or 
seizing  by  force  from  off  the  sea-coast  lands  upon  anything  which 
he  or  his  crews  might  want,  and  then  going  off  to  sea  again 
with  the  booty.  This  way  of  taking  what  did  not  belong  to  a 
man  King  Harald  called  by  the  plain  name  of  "  stealing,"  and 
was  resolved  to  punish  whenever  he  could ;  accordingly  when 
Rollo,  who  did  not  know  of  the  death  of  his  father  and  the  dis- 
grace of  his  family,  landed  on  the  island  Vigen  and  began  his 
old  habit  of  using  Strand-Hug,  he  was  seized  by  orders  of  the 
king,  who  caused  him  to  be  brought  before  the  Thing,  and  to  be 
condemned  as  an  outlaw.  Rollo's  mother  and  friends  offered 
large  sums  of  money  to  appease  his  anger,  but  to  no  purpose, 
and  the  young  man,  seeing  that  Harald  would  not  pardon  him 
or  allow  him  to  remain  in  Norway,  set  forth  in  search  of  a  home 
elsewhere.  The  Icelandic  sagas  tell  us  that,  having  crossed  the 
sea,  he  went  in  876  to  \Valland  (Gaul),  where  he  carried  on 
war  against  the  king,  and  at  last  gained  for  himself  a  great 


70  SCANDINA  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 

Jarldom,  which  he  filled  with  Northmen,  and  which  on  that 
account  was  called  "  Nordmandiet,"  or  Normandy.  "From 
this  stock  came  the  Jarls  of  Normandy,  and,  in  course  of  time, 
also  the  Kings  of  England,  for  Rollo's  son  William  was  the 
father  of  Richard,  and  this  Richard  had  a  son  of  his  own  name, 
whose  son  Rollo,  or  Robert,  was  the  father  of  William  the  Con- 
queror of  England."  Such  is  the  old  northern  account  of  the 
settlement  of  Normandy  and  of  the  line  of  descent  which  the 
Norwegians  give  of  the  first  of  our  Norman  kings. 

According  to  northern  traditions  the  Danes  had  as  early  as 
the  fifth  century  made  settlements  in  Scotland,  but  the  Nor- 
wegians did  not  attack  the  country  in  any  large  numbers  till 
the  reign  of  Harald.  In  Ireland  the  northern  vikingar  were 
known  under  the  name  of  "  Lochlanach,"  and  the  lands  from 
which  they  came  under  that  of  "  Lochlin."  The  Irish  annals 
record  the  arrival  in  852  of  an  "Olauf,  King  of  Lochlin,"  to 
whom  all  the  Northern  Gat,  or  Strangers,  submitted.  He  reigned 
in  Dublin,  whilst  two  other  northern  chiefs,  Ivar  and  Sigtrygg, 
made  small  kingdoms  for  themselves  in  Waterford  and  Limerick. 
The  descendants  of  the  vikingar  continued  to  rule  over  those 
parts  of  Ireland  till  the  time  of  our  Henry  II.,  when  the  island 
was  invaded  by  the  English  in  1172.  But  long  after  that  time 
the  former  presence  of  the  Northmen,  or  "  Eastmen,"  as  they 
were  then  called,  could  be  traced  in  the  laws  and  usages  and 
even  in  the  appearance  of  the  people  of  those  districts. 

The  close  of  Harald  Haarfager's  reign  was  troubled  by 
quarrels  amongst  his  many  sons,  and  at  last  to  escape  from 
these  family  troubles  he  retired  to  a  little  island  near  Stavanger, 
leaving  his  ungrateful  children  to  govern  the  state  as  they  liked, 
and  died  at  a  great  age  in  936,  after  having  spent  three  years 
in  this  retreat.  A  short  time  before  his  death  Harald  sent  his 
youngest  sun  Flakon  to  his  friend  the  English  King  yEthelstan, 
in  order  that  the  boy  might  be  brought  up  at  his  court  and 
kept  safe  from  the  hands  of  his  wicked  half-brother  Erik.  This 
littlj  prince,  who  to  the  end  of  his  life  was  known  as  Hakon, 
"  /Ethelstan's  fostre,"  or  /Ethelstan's  foster-child,  is  said  in 
accordance  with  an  old  northern  custom  to  have  been  brought 
by  his  attendants  to  the  English  prince,  and  placed  on  the 
knees  of  .-Ethelstan  while  he  sate  on  his  throne  holding  a  court 


SCANDINA  VIA  IN  EARL  Y  TIMES.  7 1 

of  his  nobles.  This  act  of  placing  a  child  in  the  lap  of  another 
person  was  considered  to  make  the  latter  the  foster-parent  or 
guardian  of  the  child,  and  according  to  some  writers  it  was 
looked  upon  as  an  insult,  since  whoever  became  the  foster- 
father  of  another  man's  child  was  counted  as  his  inferior. 

In  the  case  of  Hakon,  however,  no  insult  can  have  been  in- 
tended, for  his  uncle,  the  Jarl  Sigurd  who  brought  him  to  the 
English  court,  was  the  bearer  of  many  costly  gifts  from  King 
Harald  to  King  ^Ethelstan,  amongst  which  we  read  of  a  ship 
with  a  golden  beak  and  purple  sails  which  had  gilded  shields  to 
shelter  the  oarsmen  on  their  benches.  ^Ethelstan  treated  the 
young  prince  with  kindness,  and  after  having  had  him  trained 
in  all  respects  like  one  of  his  own  children  and  instructed  in 
the  Christian  faith,  he  sent  him  after  several  years'  stay  in 
England  back  to  Norway,  loaded  with  gifts  of  many  kinds.1 

1  See  "Old  English  History,"  chap.  ix.  p.  159. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

NORWAY     IN     EARLY    TIMES. 


Norwegians  under  Harald  Haarfager  go  in  search  of  new  lands — Discovery 
of  Iceland  doubly  important  as  leading  to  those  of  Greenland  and 
America  — Iceland  first  visited  between  861  and  868  ;  reported  to  be  a 
land  of  mountain  giants — Norwegians  venture  to  revisit  the  island— Its 
settlement  bylngolf — He  throws  the  consecrated  door-posts  of  his  former 
house  into  the  sea  and  follows  them  for  three  years—  How  the  Northmen 
proceeded  when  they  settled — Thorolf  brings  a  carved  image  of  Thor  for 
his  temple — Builds  a  house  and  temple,  sets  up  an  altar  to  hold  the 
sacred  silver  ring  on  which  men  swore — He  prepares  the  Temple  and  the 
Thing — Divides  Iceland  into  districts — Chieftains  send  to  Norway  to  learn 
what  the  old  laws  were — Ulfijot  spends  three  years  in  studying  the  laws 
— Hakon's  Laws — Iceland  a  Republic— Cruel  wars  for  mastery — State 
of  Norway  after  Harold's  death — Hakon's  reign — His  subjects  refuse  to 
become  Christians — Sigurd  Jarl  tries  to  screen  Hakon — He  makes  sign 
of  cross  or  Thor's  mallet — Hakon's  defeat  and  death — Troubles  in 
Norway — Olaf  Trygvasson,  his  deeds,  wars  and  death — Olaf  the  Saint  — 
Knud  the  Great — Olafs  death — Miracles  said  to  have  been  wrought  by 
Olafs  body — Magnus  the  Good  dies  and  leaves  Denmark  to  Svend 
Estridsen — Troubles  in  Sweden — Erik  Sejrs;ul— Olaf  the  Lap-king, 
first  Christian  king — 15old  language  of  peasants — Olafs  sons  Ammd 
and  Edmund — Last  of  Vnglingar  race  of  I'ppsala  kings — Erik  the  Red 
discovers  Greenland — Erik's  son  Leif  brings  monks  to  Greenland, 
builds  Churches — Fate  of  Greenland — "  Black  Death  " — Hans  Egede 
and  his  wife  go  to  teach  the  savage  Greenlandcrs — Leif's  wish  to  make 
discoveries — He  reaches  American  coasts — Vinland  and  its  grapes — 
Settlers  all  murdered  by  natives — Last  notice  of  Vinland —Columbus 
re-opens  the  way. 

PART  I. 
ICELAND. 

Early  Explorers. — BEFORE  we  quite  leave  the  time  of  the 
Norwegian  King  Harald  Haarfager,  we  must  see  how  his  stern 
rule,  by  driving  so  many  of  his  subjects  forth  in  search  of  new 
homes,  led  to  the  discovery  and  settlement  in  the  Northern 


NORWAY  IN  EARL}   TIMES.  73 

Ocean  of  the  island  of  Iceland,  which  soon  grew  to  be  the 
most  important  colony  of  Norway.  This  discovery  is  doubly 
interesting  because  it  proved  the  means  of  encouraging  the 
northern  seamen  to  venture  still  further  westward,  till  at  length 
they  reached  the  coasts  of  Greenland,  and  landed  at  many 
spot?  along  the  eastern  side  of  the  North  American  Continent. 
It  is  true  that  their  discovery  of  America  led  to  no  lasting 
results,  and  was  forgotten  by  the  other  nations  of  Europe 
— if  it  had  ever  been  known  to  them — till  many  ages  later, 
when  the  voyages  of  Columbus  and  the  other  great  discoverers 
of  the  time  drew  the  attention  of  learned  men  to  accounts 
given  in  the  sagas  of  the  early  landing  of  Northmen  on  the 
American  coasts.  But  the  fact  that  they  did  visit  the  shores  of 
America  ought  not  to  be  forgotten,  and  we  must  now  see  how 
the  settlement  of  Iceland  and  theise  later  and  less  useful  dis- 
coveries were  brought  about. 

Iceland  was  first  visited  by  a  Swede,  called  Gardar,  by  a 
Norwegian  Nadod,  who  named  the  country  Snneland  (Snowland), 
and  by  another  Norwegian  known  as  Floki  Ram,  who  gave  the 
island  its  present  name.  These  three  men  all  landed  in  Ice- 
land between  the  years  86 1  and  868,  and  even  passed  many 
months  at  a  time  there,  but  it  is  not  certain  who  among  them 
had  been  the  first  to  come  to  the  island.  On  their  return  to 
Scandinavia  they  gave  a  dreadful  account  of  the  land,  which 
according  to  their  report  had  been  cursed  by  the  gods,  and 
given  over  to  the  power  of  horrible  giants,  who  lived  hidden 
within  caves  and  mountains  where  they, kept  up  a  never- 
ending  strife  in  the  midst  of  liquid  fire,  boiling  watei,  and 
burning  stones.  After  the  Northmen  had  heard  this  report, 
some  years  passed  before  anyone  cared  to  venture  upon 
another  visit  to  a  country  of  which  such  an  alarming  character 
could  be  given ;  but  when  men  began  to  feel  the  weight  oi 
Harald;s  harsh  rule  in  Norway,  they  remembered  that  Floki's 
companions  had  not  thought  so  badly  of  it  as  he  did.  Some 
of  the  old  vikingar  then  declared  that  any  land  must  be 
better  than  the  kingdom  over  which  a  Harald  Haarfager  ruled, 
while  many  of  the  poorer  men  in  Norway  said  that  they  did  not 
care  for  the  mountain  giants,  if  only  they  might  reach  a  spot 
where  neither  king  nor  jarl  could  have  power  over  them.  So 


74  SC AND  IN  A  VI AN  H1STOR  Y. 

all  who  were  able  to  go,  set  sail  in  search  of  this  free  land  in 
the  far  north  of  which  they  knew  so  little. 

One  of  the  most  important  of  the  expeditions  fitted  out  about 
this  time  was  that  headed  by  Ingolf  the  son  of  a  Norwegian 
Jarl  who  had  slain  his  foe  in  a  deadly  combat  known  as 
a  "  holmgang,"  l  and  who,  finding  that  King  Harald  meant  to 
punish  him  according  to  the  laws,  embarked  with  all  his  family 
and  household  slaves,  and  reached  Iceland  late  in  the  autumn 
of  the  year  874.  When  he  caught  sight  of  the  land  he  threw 
into  the  sea  the  consecrated  posts  of  his  Norwegian  house 
vvhich  he  had  brought  with  him,  vowing  that  he  would  make 
his  home  wherever  the  waves  and  winds  should  cast  them 
ashore.  They  were  however  drifted  away,  and  for  three  years 
Ingolf,  attended  by  his  slaves,  continued  to  seek  for  them, 
until  at  length  the  sacred  door-posts  were  found  in  a  bay  on 
the  south-west  of  the  island,  where  he  fixed  his  abode,  and  began 
to  build  houses  on  the  spot  which  is  now  known  as  Reykjavik, 
and  has  always  been  the  chief  town  of  Iceland.  Ingolf  may 
thus  rank  as  the  first  settler  on  the  island,  but  he  was  soon 
followed  by  so  many  other  Norwegians  of  noble  birth,  that  in 
the  course  of  a  few  years  all  the  habitable  parts  of  Iceland 
had  been  peopled  by  them  and  their  followers,  and  the  usages 
and  laws,  as  well  as  the  religion  and  language  of  the  old 
country,  had  been  carried  to  this  new  colony. 

Northern  Customs. — Among  the  many  old  sagas  of  Norway 
there  is  one  called  the  Eyrbyggja  Saga,  to  which  we  will  now 
refer  on  account  of  the  light  thrown  on  northern  customs  in 
the  story  of  the  Jarl  Thorolf-Mostrar-Skegg  when  he  went  to 
Iceland  after  having  been  outlawed,  in  880,  by  King  Harald 
because  he  had  refused  to  give  up  to  the  king's  officer  his 
kinsman  Bjorn,  who  had  been  guilty  of  piracy.  It  appears 
that  Thorolf,  who  acted  according  to  the  usages  practised  in 
such  cases  by  all  great  Norwegian  settlers,  carried  with  him — 

1  Ilolnigang  meant  a  fight  on  an  island  (Holm'],  and  this  mode  of  fighting 
was  one  of  the  most  fatal  practised  by  the  Northmen.  When  two  men 
wanted  to  settle  a  quarrel  by  fighting,  it  was  the  custom  in  the  Scan- 
dinavian lands  for  them  logo  to  sonic  small  and  deserted  island  where  they 
might  be  free  from  interruption,  and  they  often  fought  witli  such  fury  that 
both  died  from  the  wounds  \\hich  they  had  given  eacli  other.  Thus  n 
holmgang  came  to  be  looked  upon  as  the  fiercc.it  of  all  single  comb.its. 


NORWA  Y  IN  EA'KL  Y  TIMES.  75 

when  he  sailed  from  Norway  with  his  family  and  slaves — the 
image  of  the  god  Thor  and  the  earth  on  which  it  had  stood, 
together  with  the  greater  part  of  the  wood-work  of  the  temple 
in  which  he  had  worshipped  in  his  home.  Many  friends 
followed  him,  and  when  the  vessels  drew  near  to  the  coasts 
of  Iceland,  Thorolf  as  pontiff,  or  chief  priest  of  all  who  had 
come  with  him,  threw  into  the  sea  the  columns  of  the  temple 
on  which  the  image  of  Thor  was  carved,  and  following  these 
sacred  objects  they  entered  a  bay  which  from  its  breadth 
he  called  "  Breida-Fjord."  Here  Thorolf  landed  and  took 
formal  possession  of  the  country  in  the  usual  manner,  which 
was  by  walking  with  a  burning  fire-brand  in  his  hands  round  the 
lands  he  meant  to  occupy,  and  setting  fire  to  the  grass  along 
the  boundary  line.  He  then  built  a  large  house  with  a  temple 
near  it  to  receive  the  sacred  columns,  together  with  Thor's 
image  and  the  consecrated  earth  that  he  had  brought  from 
Norway.  In  the  middle  of  the  temple  was  a  sanctuary  or  altar, 
on  which  was  placed  a  silver  ring  two  pounds  in  weight,  which 
was  worn  by  the  pontiff  at  all  public  meetings  of  the  people  of 
his  district,  and  used  to  give  solemnity  to  an  oath.  So  sacred 
was  this  practice  held,  that  the  person  who  perjured  himself 
after  swearing  upon  Thor's  ring  was  looked  upon  by  the  North- 
men as  the  vilest  of  men. 

When  Thorolf  had  provided  the  temple  with  these  sacred 
objects  and  with  the  basins,  knives,  and  other  instruments  used 
for  making  the  sacrifices,  he  prepared  niches  all  round  the 
building  for  the  images  of  any  other  northern  gods  that  the 
people  might  wish  to  set  up  for  worship.  Next  he  caused  the 
space  around  the  temple  to  be  enclosed  by  rows  of  stones  to 
prepare  it  for  the  annual  "  Herjar-Thing  "  (the  assise),  or  "  as- 
sembly of  the  chiefs,"  which  according  to  the  old  northern 
usage  should  be  held  in  the  open  air  within  sight  and  sound 
of  the  sacrifices.  The  ground  on  which  the  members  of  the 
Thing  held  these  meetings  was  considered  as  sacred  as  that  on 
which  the  temple  stood,  and  was  not  to  be  defiled  by  the  shed- 
ding of  blood  in  anger  nor  trodden  by  the  feet  of  men  carrying 
arms.  In  the  middle  of  the  enclosure  one  spot  was  raised  higher 
than  the  rest,  where  the  jurors  and  witnesses  were  to  stand 
forth  before  a  trial  began  and  to  take  a  solemn  oath  in  the 


76  SC AND  IN  A  VI AN  HIS  TOR  Y. 

presence  of  all  the  people  that  they  would  decide  and  speak  ac- 
cording to  truth,  adding  "  so  help  me  Freje,  Njord,  Thor,  and 
the  All-mighty  As  (Odin)."1 

Thorolf  divides  Iceland. — When  Thorolf  had  thus  prepared  all 
things,  in  order  that  religion  and  the  laws  might  be  observed  in 
the  new  country,  he  divided  the  colony  into  three  districts  which 
owned  him  for  head  pontiff,  but  were  ruled  over  by  separate 
chiefs,  each  of  whom  within  his  own  limits  acted  much  the 
same  as  Thorolf  had  done  in  regard  to  his  larger  share  of  the 
island.  And  the  mode  of  government  which  he  thus  set  up  at 
his  first  landing  was  long  followed,  and  may  in  the  present  day 
still  be  traced  in  some  matters  regarding  the  administration  of 
the  laws  in  Iceland. 

In  the  space  of  sixty  years  after  Thorolf 's  coming  to  Iceland, 
all  parts  of  the  island  that  could  be  dwelt  in  were  occupied  by 
settlers  from  Norway,  in  spite  of  what  King  Harald  Haarfager 
had  tried  to  do  to  prevent  his  subjects  leaving  the  kingdom  to 
settle  in  this  remote  and  free  colony.  After  a  time  when  the 
pontiff-chiefs  found  the  inconvenience  of  having  no  common 
high  court  of  law  to  which  they  could  appeal  in  case  of  disputes, 
they  determined  to  remedy  the  evil  the  best  way  they  could. 
They  therefore  agreed  to  trust  to  the  wisdom  of  one  man  for 
whom  they  all  felt  respect,  and  accordingly  they  applied  to 
Ulfljot,  a  wise  and  honest  chieftain,  and  begged  him,  as  he- 
valued  the  peace  and  happiness  of  Iceland,  to  return  to  Norway 
and  learn  from  the  wise  lawgivers  of  the  old  country  what  were 
the  laws  and  usages  of  their  forefathers.  Ulfljot  accepted  tin- 
charge,  and  although  he  was  then  sixty  years  of  age,  he  left 
his  home  and  family  and  undertook  the  voyage  to  Norway, 

i  The  sF.sir  (sing.  Ast  God.)  were  fabled  to  have  lived  in  "  Asgaard  " 
(Heaven),  from  whence  they  crossed  the  bridge  "  Bifrost "  (Rainbow)  to 
reach  "  Midgaard"  (the  Earth).  Beyond  the  sea  which  encircled  Midgaard 
lay  "  Jotunheim  "  or  the  Giant's  Dwelling-place.  The  /Ksir  were  hap]>y  and 
at  peace  till  they  made  acquaintance  with  the  giants  and  giantesses  of  Jotun- 
heim, when  their  golden  age  passed  away.  Odin  cast  his  spear  out  in  the 
midst  of  the  world  and  war  began.  The  yKsir  fought  with  the  Vaner 
(Wends),  but  finding  them  too  strong  lo  be  subdued,  they  made  peace  with 
them  and  took  Njord  and  his  son  Freje  to  be  their  equals  in  Asgaard,  (In- 
former to  rule  over  the  sea  and  the  winds,  and  the  latter  over  peace  and 
plenty. 


NORWA  Y  IN  EARL  Y  TIMES.  77 

where  he  remained  from  the  year  925  till  928.  After  spending 
those  three  years  in  the  study  of  the  laws  and  in  writing  down 
all  that  Thorleif  the  Wise,  a  man  skilled  in  ancient  law,  could 
teach  him,  he  came  back  to  Iceland  and  began  to  prepare  a 
code  of  laws,  which  were  read  out  to  the  people  at  an  "  All- 
Thing,"  or  general  parliament,  and  approved  of  by  them. 

These  events  happened  in  the  time  of  the  great  King  /Ethel- 
stan,  grandson  of  King  Alfred,  of  whose  reign  we  read  so  many 
interesting  particulars  in  the  "  Old  English  History."  We  know, 
however,  little  or  nothing  now  of  the  laws  collected  by  Ulfljot, 
nor  of  those  drawn  up  by  Thorleif  the  Wise,  and  used  by 
^Ethelstan's  foster-son,  King  Hakon  the  Good,  in  the  formation 
of  the  ancient  code  long  followed  in  Norway,  and  called  the 
Gule-laws,  from  the  Thing  at  which  they  were  first  made 
public. 

For  three  hundred  years  after  its  settlement  Iceland  was  a 
republic,  but  it  was  not  a  peaceful  state,  and  both  before  and 
after  the  introduction  of  Christianity  the  chiefs  carried  on  the 
most  deadly  and  cruel  wars  against  each  other,  and  few  men 
living  on  the  island  were  left  to  enjoy  what  they  owned  in  quiet. 
This  colony  had  been  settled  by  men  who  would  not  bear  one 
master  nor  respect  the  rank  of  king  or  jarl,  but  within  a  few 
generations  the  descendants  of  those  very  men  were  troubled 
by  many  masters,  and  saw  their  equals  striving  for  more  power 
than  any  king  or  jarl  in  the  old  country  had  ever  used.  For 
the  present,  however,  we  must  leave  the  history  of  Iceland  and 
return  to  that  of  Norway. 


PART  II. 
SWEDEN     AND     NORWAY. 

Hakon,  sEtlielstans  Foster-son. — On  the  death  of  Harald 
Haarfager  in  936,  his  eldest  son,  the  cruel  Erik,  "  Blod-oxe,"  or 
Blood-oxe,  so  called  from  his  love  of  shedding  blood,  began  to 
govern  even  more  harshly  than  he  had  done  during  the  three 
years  that  he  had  ruled  in  his  father's  lifetime.  The  people  of 


78  SCA  NDINA  VIA  N  HIS  TOR  Y. 

Norway  growing  wear)'  of  his  cruelty  rose  against  him,  and  in 
938  drove  him  and  his  equally  wicked  queen  Gunhild  with  their 
children  out  of  the  country,  and  then  took  Hakon,  /Ethelstan's 
foster-son,  by  the  advice  of  his  uncle  Sigurd,  to  be  their  king. 
Erik  escaped  to  England,  where  he  offered  to  become  the  vassal 
of^Ethelstan,  and  soon  afterwards  in  return  for  the  services  which 
he  rendered  the  king,  he  was  made  ruler  over  the  Danish  pro- 
vince of  Northumbria,  and  continued  in  that  office  till  his  death 
a  few  years  later.  Hakon,  in  the  meanwhile,  ruled  justly  over 
Norway,  and  besides  the  Gule-laws  of  which  we  have  spoken,  he 
collected  several  other  codes  to  regulate  the  duties  of  defend- 
ing the  country  and  the  trading  business  of  his  kingdom,  and 
did  many  other  things  for  the  welfare  of  his  people. 

His  subjects  were  very  grateful  to  him  for  all  he  had  done, 
except  in  regard  to  his  attempts  to  put  down  the  old  religion,  and 
when  he  began  to  urge  them  to  become  Christians,  the  "Bonder," 
or  peasants,  came  forward  at  the  great  annual  Thing  and  declared 
that  they  would  not  forsake  the  gods  who  had  watched  over 
their  fathers  through  so  many  ages,  adding  that  unless  King 
Hakon  would  conduct  the  services  of  religion  as  other  kings 
of  Norway  had  done,  they  would  no  longer  pay  him  the  duty  of 
subjects.  Threats  and  murmurs  resounded  on  all  sides  against 
the  king  when  he  was  seen  to  hesitate,  and  Hakon  would  pro- 
bably have  lost  his  crown,  had  not  his  uncle  Sigurd  Jarl,  whose 
wisdom  and  prudence  are  praised  in  the  sagas,  turned  aside  the 
anger  of  the  people.  Putting  on  the  robes  of  a  pontiff,  which 
his  rank  entitled  him  to  wear,  Sigurd  stepped  into  the  midst  of 
the  assembly  and  said  that  the  king  had  ordered  him  to  officiate 
that  day  in  his  place,  and  on  that  account  only  had  hesitated 
when  the  people  appealed  to  him.  Then  after  consecrating  the 
great  drinking  horn  of  sacrifice  to  Otlin  as  the  All-Fadir,  he 
held  it  towards  Hakon,  standing  between  him  and  the  assembled 
people  in  such  a  manner  as  to  screen  him  from  notice  while  he 
drained  the  cup.  Some  persons  had  seen,  however,  that  the 
king  made  the  sign  of  the  cross  before  he  drank,  and  when  they 
told  the  rest  of  the  people  what  they  had  observed,  a  great 
tumult  arose,  and  the  jarls,  priests,  and  peasants  agreed  in  say- 
ing that  they  would  have  no  Christian  for  their  king.  Then  Sigurd 
acain  came  forward,  and  in  a  loud  voice  proclaimed  that  his 


NOR  WA  Y  IN  EARL  Y  TIMES.  79 


nephew  King  Hakon  was  a  faithful  believer  in  Thor,  and  that 
when  he  was  supposed  to  be  making  the  sign  of  the  Christian's 
cross,  he  was  only  making  the  sign  of  the  god's  mallet.1  His 
words,  for  that  once,  turned  away  the  suspicions  of  the  people, 
while  Hakon  on  his  side  avoided,  for  a  time,  all  further  cause 
of  offence,  and  even  joined  in  a  solemn  feast  in  which  all  par- 
took of  the  liver  of  a  horse  which  had  been  sacrificed  to  Odin. 
This  was  looked  upon  as  a  religious  rite,  and  Hakon  repenting 
of  his  duplicity  in  regard  to  the  sacrifices,  and  of  his  weakness 
in  having  taken  part  in  such  a  heathen  practice,  retired  for  a 
year  to  his  country  house  at  Msere,  to  devote  himself  to  acts 
of  penitence  ;  but  while  he  thus  withdrew  from  the  management 
of  public  affairs  his  kingdom  was  being  harassed  by  invasion. 

Twice  in  the  course  of  a  few  years  Norway  was  invaded  by  a 
large  fleet  of  Danish  ships  which  had  been  sent  by  Harald  Blaa- 
tand  of  Denmark  to  help  the  sons  of  the  former  Norwegian 
king,  Erik  Blod-oxe,  to  get  the  crown  for  themselves.  The  Nor- 
wegians who  had  suffered  greatly  under  the  rule  of  Erik  refused 
to  allow  his  sons  to  land,  and  drove  back  the  ships  of  the  in- 
vaders on  their  first  appearance.  But  when  Erik's  widow  came 
again  with  a  Danish  fleet  in  963,  King  Hakon  was  surprised  and 
defeated  before  an  army  could  be  collected  to  repel  the  enemy, 
and  feeling  himself  mortally  wounded,  he  sent  for  his  nephews 
and  entreated  them  to  spare  all  further  bloodshed  and  rule  justly 
in  his  place.  When  asked  if  he  wished  his  body  to  be  sent  to 
England  to  be  buried,  Hakon  answered,  "  As  a  heathen  have  I 
lived,  and  therefore  I  may  not  be  buried  as  a  Christian." 

Olaf  Trygvasson. — After  the  death  of  Hakon^Ethelstan-fostre, 
Norway  for  more  than  half  a  century  endured  constant  trouble 
under  the  rule  of  Erik  Blod-oxe's  son,  Erik  Graafell,  and  that  of 
Hakon  Jarl,  the  son  of  King  Hakon's  uncle,  Sigurd,  who  after 
securing  the  throne  by  the  help  of  the  Danish  king,  Harald 
Blaatand,  in  whose  name  he  pretended  to  rule,  threw  off  the 
yoke  and  kept  the  kingdom  for  himself.  When  Hakon  Jarl 
died  in  995,  Norway  was  ruled  for  a  few  years  by  Olaf  Tryg- 


So  SCANDINA  VI AN  HISTOR  Y, 

vasson  who  had  taken  part  with  Svend  Tveskceg  of  Denmark 
in  invading  England  in  994.  This  prince,  who  was  one  of  the 
most  daring  vikingar  of  his  times,  had  in  the  course  of  his  viking 
visited  the  coasts  of  Gaul  and  Italy,  and  while  he  was  in  the 
south  of  Europe  he  had  been  signed  with  the  cross,  and  had 
soon  afterwards  renounced  paganism.  This  became  the  cause 
of  ill-will  between  Svend  and  himself,  and  when  Olaf  still  further 
offended  the  Danish  king  by  marrying  his  sister  Thyra  against 
his  wishes  after  she  had  been  divorced  by  her  husband,  Prince 
Burislav  of  the  Wends,  a  deadly  feud  sprang  up  between  them. 
Svend  raised  a  war  against  his  brother-in-law,  and  Olaf,  forsaken 
by  most  of  his  subjects,  who  were  enraged  at  his  attempts  to 
force  Christianity  upon  them,  was  defeated  in  a  great  sea-battle 
at  Svold,  on  the  Pomeranian  coast.  When  the  fight  was  over 
and  all  seemed  lost,  Olaf  to  escape  falling  into  the  hands  of  his 
foes  sprang  overboard  in  full  armour,  and  was  seen  no  more ; 
but  the  people  of  Norway  would  not  believe  in  his  death, 
thinking  that  he  had  escaped  and  wandered  as  a  pilgrim  to  the 
Holy  Land,  where  he  lived  for  many  years  devoted  to  works  of 
piety.  His  widow  Thyra  starved  herself  to  death,  refusing  to 
survive  her  well-loved  Olaf;  and  his  victors,  Svend  Tveskoeg 
of  Denmark,  Olaf,  the  Lap-King  of  Sweden,  and  Erik  and 
Svend,  the  sons  of  Hakon  Jarl,  parted  his  kingdom  between 
them.  These  princes  ruled  justly  for  some  years  till  their 
power  was  destroyed  by  the  many  great  jarls  who  had  grown 
jealous  of  them. 

Olaf  the  Saint. — In  1015  Olaf,  the  son  of  Harald  Grcenske, 
who  was  known  in  later  times  as  ''the  Saint,"  freed  Norway 
from  her  many  rulers,  and  induced  the  Norwegians  to  accept 
Christianity ;  but  the  harsh  manner  in  which  he  forced  the 
new  religion  upon  his  people  led  in  the  year  1030  to  the 
loss,  not  only  of  his  crown,  but  of  his  life.  Knud  the  Great 
of  Denmark,  who  wanted  to  add  Norway  to  his  other  states, 
had  had  a  share  in  bringing  about  the  defeat  of  Olaf,  by  the 
help  which  he  gave  to  the  rebel  pagans  in  the  kingdom.  The 
Norwegian  king  was  killed  while  giving  battle  to  a  large  body 
of  pc'.i-ints  at  Stiklestad  in  Venial,  ar.d  as  soon  as  Knud  learnt 
that  Olaf  had  been  slain  he  sent  his  own  son  Svend,  a  lad  of 
fifteen,  to  rule  in  his  name  as  King  of  Norway.  Svend's  youth 


NOR  WA  Y  IN  EARL  Y  TIMES.  fc 1 

and  folly,  however,  soon  made  the  people  of  Norway  wish  their 
own  king  back  amongst  them,  for  Svend  let  himself  be  ruled 
by  bad  counsels,  and  did  not  obey  his  father's  commands  that 
he  should  try  to  win  the  regard  and  respect  of  the  nation.  It 
was  soon  whispered  abroad  that  the  corpse  of  the  slain  Olaf  was 
working  miracles,  and  these  reports  took  such  hold  of  the  minds 
of  the  people,  that  they  sent  for  Olaf  s  son,  Magnus,  to  be  their 
king,  hoping  thus  to  make  what  amends  they  could  for  their 
sin  against  the  father.  In  the  meanwhile  Olaf 's  body  was  care- 
fully moved  from  the  battle-field  at  Stiklestad,  where  a  peasant 
had  buried  it  after  the  fight,  and  carried  to  the  cathedral  church 
at  Nidaros,  the  present  town  of  Throndhjem  (Drontheim). 
Here  the  remains  were  laid  in  a  tomb,  which  then,  and  for  many 
ages  afterwards,  was  visited  by  pilgrims  from  all  parts  of  the 
Scandinavian  lands,  in  the  belief  that  great  miracles  were 
wrought  at  the  spot.1 

When  young  Prince  Magnus  returned  from  the  court  of  his 
uncle,  Jaroslav  Duke  of  Russia,  the  Norwegians  received  him 
with  joy,  and  Svend  of  Denmark  was  forced  to  leave  the  king- 
dom. This  was  the  Magnus  who  became  King  of  Denmark  in 
1042  on  the  death  of  Knud's  son  Harthaknud,  and  who  showed 
great  kindness  to  Knud's  nephew,  Svend  Estridsen,  leaving  him 
to  rule  over  the  Danish  kingdom  in  his  name.  As  we  have  read 
in  a  former  chapter,2  Magnus  having  met  with  a  poor  return  for 
his  friendship,  had  to  go  to  war  with  the  ungrateful  Svend,  and 
was  killed  in  a  battle  against  him  near  Halsted  in  the  year  1047, 
alter  having,  with  his  last_  breath,  begged  his  people  to  help 
Svend  to  become  King  of  Denmark,  while  the  Danes  being 

1  St.  Olaf  was  believed  by  the  people  of  the  North  in  those  early  times 
to  have  possessed  many  of  the  powers  which  had  been  ascribed  to  the  god 
Thor,  and  to  have  been  gifted  with  his  bodily  strength  and  his  red  beard. 
St.  Olafs  shrine  of  silver,  weighing  3,200  ounces,  and  inlaid  with  precious 
stones,  was  for  many  ages  carefully  preserved  at  Throndhjem,  and  carried  by 
sixty  men  in  solemn  procession  on  the  Saint's  festival,  July  29,  on  the 
election  of  a  king  of  Norway,  or  other  great  occasions.  At  length  it  was 
sei/ed  by  the  Danes  and  carried  away,  and  when  the  Swedes  in  our  Queen 
Elizabeth's  time  made  war  on  Denmark  and  Norway,  and  took  the  town  of 
Throndhjem,  they  found  no  relics  of  the  Saint  but  his  helmet  and  spurs. 
These  they  took  and  brought  to  Stockholm,  where  they  are  still  preserved 
in  the  church  of  St.  Nicholas. 

-  See  Chap.  iv. ,  p.  57. 

G 


82  SCANDINAVIAN  HISTORY. 

willing  to  receive  him,  Svend  secured  the  Danish  crown  for 
himself  through  the  generous  conduct  of  his  former  rival. 

Sweden. — Before  we  close  this  chapter,  and  begin  the  story 
of  Svend's  reign  in  Denmark,  we  must  try  to  get  some  idea  of 
what  had  been  passing  in  Sweden  during  the  time  that  the  sea- 
men of  Norway  and  Denmark  were  spreading  themselves  far 
and  wide  over  hitherto  unknown  lands.  There  is  not  much  to 
learn  in  regard  to  the  Swedish  people  of  old  on  account  of  the 
quarrels  between  the  Svea  and  the  Gota,  and  the  confused  state 
of  public  affairs.  We  know,  however,  that  the  former  people 
were  for  some  ages  ruled  over  by  descendants  of  Ragnar  Lod- 
brog's  son  or  grandson,  Bjorn  Jernside  (Ironsides),  amongst 
whom  the  most  noteworthy  was  Erik  Sejrscel,  or  the  Victorious, 
who  began  to  reign  in  the  middle  of  the  tenth  century,  and  died 
in  the  year  993.  This  prince  in  983  defeated  his  nephew, 
Styrbjorn,  and  a  great  number  of  vikingar  from  the  pagan  bro- 
therhood of  Jomsborg,  in  a  three-days'  fight  at  Fyrisval  off  the 
Swedish  coast.  From  that  time  till  his  death  he  is  said  to  have 
ruled  in  peace  over  Sweden,  and  even  at  one  time  to  have  had 
Denmark  under  his  power  and  to  have  driven  the  Danish  King 
Svend  Tveskceg  out  of  his  kingdom.  The  truth  of  this  account 
seems  very  doubtful,  but  the  story  is  recorded  by  the  writer, 
Adam  of  Bremen,  who  was  the  friend  and  scribe  of  King  Svend 
Estridsen  of  Denmark.  Erik  Sejerscel,  at  his  death  in  993, 
left  one  son  Olaf,  known  as  the  "  Lap-king,"  because  he  was  an 
infant  in  arms  when  he  received  the  homage  of  the  people.  The 
mother  of  this  young  prince  was  Sigrid,  called  "  Storaade,"  or 
the  Proud,  who  after  the  death  of  King  Erik  became  the  wife  of 
Svend  Tveskceg  of  Denmark,  for  whom  she  secured  considerable 
power  in  Sweden  during  the  childhood  of  her  son,  the  little 
King  Olaf. 

Olaf  the  Lap-King. — Olaf  the  Lap-King,  who  reigned  from 
993  to  1024,  was  the  first  Christian  King  of  Sweden,  and  is 
believed  to  have  received  baptism  about  the  year  1000.  He 
had  been  instructed  in  Christianity  by  Siegfred,  an  Englishman 
who  may  be  called  the  second  apostle  of  the  North.  This 
good  man  devoted  a  long  life  to  the  work  of  converting  the 
pagan  Swedes,  and  died  at  a  great  age,  among  the  people  of 
Smaland,  with  whom  he  had  begun  his  labours.  But  while 


NOR  IV  A  Y  IN  EARL  Y  TIMES. 


the  Lap-king  became  a  Christian,  most  of  his  people  remained 
heathens,  and  although  they  allowed  Olaf  to  erect  a  bishopric 
at  Skara  —  the  mother-see  of  the  North  —  they  forced  him  to 
leave  them  free  to  follow  their  own  religion,  in  return  for  which 
they  gave  him  the  choice  of  any  district  in  Sweden  in  which 
he  liked  to  build  Christian  churches.  He  made  choice  of 
West  Gothland,  which  thenceforth  continued  to  be  the  chief 
seat  of  Christianity,  while  "  Svithjdd,"  the  lands  of  the  Svea, 
would  not  receive  Christian  teachers  within  their  boundaries, 
or  take  Christian  kings  for  their  rulers  for  more  than  a  century 
later. 

Olaf  the  Lap-King's  reign  was  troubled  by  constant  quarrels 
with  Norway,  towards  whose  king,  Olaf  the  Saint,  he  had 
borne  ill-will  since  the  latter  had  invaded  the  coasts  of  Sweden 
in  the  course  of  a  viking  cruise.  The  Swedish  peasants  of  that 
age  had  great  power  in  the  state,  and  were  not  backward 
in  using  it  ;  for  when  the  king  refused  their  request  that  he 
should  make  peace  with  Norway  and  give  his  daughter  in 
marriage  to  the  young  Norwegian  King  Olaf,  they  threatened  to 
dethrone  him.  In  a  long  speech  before  the  Thing  at  Uppsala  a 
great  Lagman  or  law-explainer,  called  Thorgny,  set  before  the 
king  what  he  was  to  do,  and  ended  by  informing  him  that, 
unless  he  made  his  acts  conform  to  the  wishes  of  his  people, 
they  would  do  by  him  what  their  forefathers  had  done  when 
five  of  their  kings  had,  like  him,  been  puffed  up  with  pride 
and  tried  to  follow  their  own  evil  wishes.  As  these  kings  had 
been  publicly  drowned  in  a  deep  morass  Olaf  had  no  wish  to 
bring  a  similar  fate  upon  himself,  and  he,  therefore,  in  the 
presence  of  all  the  men  of  the  Thing,  promised  that  he  would 
rule  his  actions  by  their  wishes  :  "  For  such,"  he  added,  "has 
ever  been  the  custom  with  the  kings  of  the  Svea.;>  But  in 
spite  of  his  promises  Olaf  soon  afterwards  gave  his  daughter 
in  marriage  to  the  Russian  Grand  Duke,  Jaroslav  of  Novogorod, 
who  was  a  near  kinsman  of  his,  and  this  act  would  certainly 
have  cost  him  his  crown  had  not  the  Svea,  in  their  jealousy  of 
the  men  of  Gothland,  taken  their  king's  part  when  the  Gota 
proposed  in  the  year  1022  to  put  him  aside.  They  declared 
that  as  the  Gota  had  always  been  second  to  the  Svea  in  olden 
times,  they  would  not  allow  them  to  put  themselves  first  in 

G  2 


84  SC AND  IN  A  VI AN  HIS  TOR  Y. 

deciding  who  should  be  king  over  them.  The  Gota  yielded, 
and  the  end  of  the  dispute  was  that  Olaf  remained  king,  and  his 
son  Anund  was  made  joint  ruler  with  him.  After  the  death  of 
Anund,  his  brother,  Edmund  Gammal,  or  the  Old,  reigned  in 
Sweden,  and  with  him  ended  the  race  of  the  Uppsala  kings, 
who  through  Sigurd  Ring  traced  their  descent  to  Odin's  pontiff 
Njord.  Edmund  was  a  bad  king,  who  let  the  Christians  be 
persecuted  in  the  land,  and  who  is  believed  to  have  died 
after  a  short  reign  about  the  year  1055,  although  'the  exact 
date  is  not  known. 


PART  III. 

NORTHERN     DISCOVERIES. 

Erik  the  Red. — During  the  last  half  of  the  tenth  century, 
when  the  people  of  Norway  were  struggling  to  resist  Christi- 
anity, and  their  kings  were  striving  to  put  down  the  old 
pagan  faith  of  the  country,  restless  men  continued,  as  they 
had  done  under  Harald  Haarfager,  to  seek  new  homes  in 
which  they  might  worship  as  they  liked,  and  escape  falling 
under  the  power  of  the  laws.  Then  it  was  that  a  Norwegian, 
known  as  Erik  "  Raudi,"  or  the  Red,  son  of  Thorwald  Jarl. 
having  been  made  an  outlaw  both  in  Norway  and  in  Iceland 
on  account  of  a  murder  of  which  lie  had  been  guilty,  set  sail 
in  search  of  some  quiet  spot,  where  he  might  do  what  pleased 
him  without  having  to  fear  the  consequences  of  his  acts. 

In  the  course  of  his  cruising  in  the  northern  seas,  he  came 
to  a  land  which  he  named  ''  Greenland,"  in  the  hope  perhaps 
of  making  others  believe  that  it  was  a  fruitful  country.  This 
discovery  of  his  was  made  in  983,  during  the  time  of  our  kini; 
yEthelred  the  Unready,  and  a  few  years  later  he  induced  a 
number  of  Icelanders,  who  like  him  were  tired  of  living  in  a 
land  where  laws  were  enforced,  to  join  him  in  the  new  country, 
and  thus  Greenland  was  settled  by  people  from  Norway  and 
Iceland.  Erik  Raudi,  or  the  Red,  had  one  son  Leif,  who  in 
early  youth  had  served  under  King  Olaf  Trygvasson  and  gone 
with  him  to  Gaul  and  Italy,  and  after  sharing  in  many  of  the 


NOR  WA  Y  IN  EARL  Y  TIMES.  85 

daring  adventures  of  the  Norwegian  prince,  had  returned 
with  him  to  Norway  and  became  a  Christian.  On  the  death  of 
the  king,  Leif  determined  to  convert  his  father's  new  colony, 
and  in  the  year  1000  he  came  back  to  Greenland,  bringing  with 
him  several  monks,  who  at  once  began  to  baptise  the  people, 
till  soon  there  was  not  a  pagan  left  among  them. 

This  colony  of  Greenland  had  a  very  strange  and  sad  fate, 
of  which  we  must  speak  now,  although  the  history  of  its  troubles 
really  belongs  to  a  much  later  period.     Unlike  its  sister  colony, 
Iceland,  it  was  after  a  time  wholly  destroyed,  and  so  thoroughly 
lost  sight  of  that  at  the  present  day  it  is  a  matter  of  doubt 
whether  the  settlements  made  by  Erik  and  his  son  Leif  were 
on  the  east  or  the  west  coasts  of  Greenland.     It  is,  however, 
believed  that  both  the  eastern  and  western  snores  were  early 
settled,  and  that  they  continued  to  be  occupied  by  a  flourishing 
colony  till  near  the  middle  of  the  fourteenth  century.     Then  in 
the  reign  of  our  Edward  III.,  the  plague  known  as  the  "  Black 
Death,"  which  had  been  raging  for  many  years  in  every  part 
of  Northern  Europe,  reached  Greenland,  and  nearly  killed  all 
the  people.     The  few  persons  who  escaped  the  ravages  of  this 
frightful  disease  were  soon  afterwards  cut  off  by  some  hostile 
wild  natives,  who,  taking  advantage  of  their  small  numbers,  fell 
upon  them  and  killed  them.     It  is  supposed  that  the  settle- 
ments on  the  east  coasts,  known  as  the  "  Oestre  Bygd,"  were 
not    quite  destroyed    at  the  time  that  those    of  the    "  Vestre 
Bygd  "  were  cut  off.  but  before  the  reign  of  our  Edward  IV. 
(in  1460)  they  too  had  ceased  to  exist.     For  ages  afterwards 
no  one  made  any  attempt  to  explore  the  coasts  on  which  these 
old  northern  settlers  had  met  with  so  sad  an  end,  but  in  the 
early  part  of  last  century,  when  George  I.  was  King  of  England, 
a  Norwegian  clergyman,  called  Hans  Egede,  obtained  ships  and 
money  from   the   Danish   king,   Frederick   IV.,  to   proceed  to 
Greenland  in  order  that  he  might  try  to  convert  the  native 
Greenlanders,  who  had  been  neglected  by  the  Mother-Country 
since  the  days  of  the  Black  Death  of  1350.     Hans  Egede  and 
his  wife  Gertude  laboured  with  zeal  to  convert  and  civilize  the 
poor  neglected  natives  from  the  time  of  their  landing  in  Green- 
land, in   1721,  till  the  death  of  H.ins  in  1736,  when   their  son 
Paul    Egede   took   up   the   good    work   that   they    Lad    begun. 


86  SCANDINAVIAN  HISTORY. 

Since  that  time  the  Danes  have  had  settlements  in  the  country, 
and  have  opened  factories  and  mission-houses  for  the  benefit 
of  these  remote  colonies. 

Leifs  Discoveries. — We  must  now  go  back  to  Leif,  who  after 
having  seen  a  church  established  in  Greenland  and  a  bishop 
appointed  to  take  charge  of  it,  began  to  wish  for  some  new 
excitement  elsewhere.  This  soon  offered  itself  to  him  in  the 
prospect  of  finding  a  new  land  as  his  father  Erik  the  Red  had 
done,  when  he  discovered  Greenland.  It  happened  that 
in  the  year  1003  an  Icelander,  Bjarne,  while  sailing  in  search 
of  his  father  who  had  gone  on  a  trading  voyage  to  Greenland, 
was  carried  far  away  to  the  west  and  south,  till  he  reached  a 
flat  country  so  thickly  covered  with  wood,  that  he  felt  certain 
from  the  descriptions  he  had  heard  of  Greenland,  it  could  not 
be  the  land  of  which  he  was  in  search.  He  therefore  sailed 
in  a  different  direction  and  came  safely  to  Greenland,  where 
he  spoke  to  the  settlers  of  the  strange  land  he  had  seen.  On 
hearing  these  accounts  Leif  became  impatient  to  visit  the  new 
country,  and  buying  Bjarne's  ship  he  manned  it  with  thirty-five 
good  seamen,  and  begged  his  father  Erik  to  take  the  command 
of  it.  Erik  the  Red  agreed  to  accompany  his  son,  but  being  an 
old  man  by  that  time  and  feeble,  he  went  to  the  place  of 
embarkation  on  horseback,  when,  his  horse  stumbling,  he 
regarded  it  as  a  bad  omen  and  declined  to  go  on  board,  saying, 
"  I  do  not  believe  it  is  given  to  me  to  discover  more  lands,  and 
here  I  will  abide." 

Leif  then  set  sail  without  his  father,  and  following  the 
course  which  Bjarne  had  taken,  he  reached  after  a  time  a  long 
line  of  coast,  at  many  parts  of  which  he  and  his  men  landed, 
and  gathered  delicious  berries  and  other  fruits,  which  were 
unknown  to  some  of  them,  but  which  seemed  to  Leif  very  like 
the  fruits  he  had  eaten  in  the  south  of  Europe  when  serving 
tinder  Olaf  Trygvasson.  One  day  when  Leif  and  some  of  his 
men  had  landed  on  the  unknown  coast,  he  lost  sight  of  his 
father's  servant  Tyrkcr,  who  was  a  German.  Leif  sought  him 
for  a  long  time  in  the  woods,  and  at  length  found  him  gather- 
ing bright  purple  and  red  bunches  of  fruit,  which  the  man 
seemed  overjoyed  to  have  found.  In  his  excitement  he  had 
forgotten  the  northern  tongue,  which  he  had  long  used,  and 


NOR  WA  Y  IN  EARL  Y  TIMES.  87 

began  to  speak  in  his  own  South-German  language,  and  it  was 
some  time  before  he  could  make  his  master  and  his  com- 
panions understand  that  he  had  found  grapes,  of  which  in  his 
native  country  men  made  wine. 

The  Northmen  spent  the  winter  in  this  district,  which  Leif 
had  named  "  Vinland  den  Gode,"  or  "  Wine-land  the  Good," 
and  which  is  believed  to  have  been  the  present  state  of  Rhode 
Island,  and  after  cruising  along  the  coasts  further  south,  they 
returned  to  Greenland  and  told  their  friends  of  all  the  strange 
lands  they  had  seen.  This  happened  about  the  year  1003,  or 
1004,  and  during  the  next  few  years  Leif  and  his  brothers, 
Thorwald  and  Thorstein,  made  several  voyages  to  the  same 
shores,  with  the  view  of  settling  in  Vinland  or  in  one  of  the 
many  other  pleasant  spots  which  they  had  seen  in  the  far- 
west.  But  the  settlements  which  the  Northmen  attempted  to 
make  on  those  coast-lands,  which  we  know  from  their  position 
must  have  been  in  the  Atlantic  states  of  North  America,  were 
too  small  to  resist  the  attacks  of  the  natives,  and  thus  they 
were  one  by  one  cut  off  and  the  leaders  killed.  Leif  died  in 
Greenland  amongst  his  own  kindred,  but  Thorwald  and 
Thorstein,  and  several  other  great  chiefs  were  early  cut  down  in 
hand-to-hand  fights  with  the  natives,  whom  the  Northmen 
called  "  Skraelingar "  or  dwarfs,  and  compared  to  the  savages 
whom  they  and  their  fathers  had  found  in  Greenland. 

The  latest  notice  of  Vinland  is  to  be  found  in  the  "  Eyrbyggia 
Saga,"  where  it  is  related  that,  in  the  last  years  of  the  reign  of 
Olaf  the  Saint  of  Norway,  who  died  in  1030,  an  Icelander 
named  Gudleif,  in  making  a  trading  voyage  to  Iceland,  was 
driven  far  to  the  south  and  west  till  he  reached  a  land  where 
he  saw  dark-skinned  natives  on  the  shore.  These  men  came  in 
great  numbers  to  attack  the  strangers,  and,  after  seizing  them, 
carried  them  bound  into  the  country.  Here  they  were  met  by 
an  old,  light-haired  chief  of  tall  and  commanding  stature,  who, 
spoke  to  Gudleif  in  Icelandic,  and  told  him  that  he  and  his 
companions  might  return  to  their  ships,  but  that  if  they  valued 
their  lives  they  would  make  no  delay,  as  the  natives  were  cruel 
to  strangers.  He  refused  to  tell  his  name,  but  he  asked  tidings 
of  Snorre  Gode,  one  of  the  leading  men  of  Iceland,  and  begged 
that  Gudleif  would  carry  back  with  him  a  gold  ring  for  Snorre's 


08  SC AND  IN  A  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 

sister  Thurida  and  a  sword  for  her  son.  When  Gudleif  returned 
with  these  gifts,  and  told  the  people  of  Iceland  what  had  befallen 
him,  it  was  believed  by  them  that  the  fair-skinned  man  in  Vin- 
land  was  Bjorn,  a  famous  Skald,  who  had  loved  Thurida  in  her 
youth,  and  who  had  never  been  heard  of  since  he  had  sailed 
from  Iceland  in  the  year  998. 

After  Gudleif  returned  in  1030  from  his  voyage  to  the  far- 
west,  no  settlement  of  the  Northmen  is  known  to  have  been 
again  attempted,  although  a  Saxon  priest  is  said  to  have  sailed 
from  Iceland  in  1059  to  convert  the  heathens  of  Yinland,  but 
he  too  was  murdered  by  the  natives.  For  nearly  four  centuries 
and  a  half  the  western  world  was  again  wrapped  in  darkness, 
until  in  1492  the  great  Genoese  seaman,  Christopher  Columbus, 
re-opened  the  ocean-road  to  its  vast  territories,  and  for  the  first 
time  made  them  known  to  the  nations  of  the  old  eastern  world 
in  which  we  live. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE     ESTRIDSENS. 


The  story  of  S vend  Estridsen,  the  father  of  all  later  rulers  of  Denmark— His 
wars  with  Harald  Hardraade,  King  of  Norway,  called  Denmark's 
Blight — Harald's  invasion  of  England,  his  death  on  the  field  of  battle 
— Svend's  message  to  William  the  Conqueror,  demanding  homage  from 
him — The  fate  of  Svend's  hostile  fleet — Svend's  learning  ;  his  love  of 
learned  men  ;  his  friendship  for  Adam,  Canon  of  Bremen  ;  his  intimacy 
with  the  English  churchman,  William,  Bishop  of  Roeskilde— Svend's 
act  of  murder — William's  way  of  turning  him  out  of  church  ;  Svend's 
penitence- -Why  Svend  was  called  "Estridsen  ";  how  he  is  the  ancestor  of 
the  Queen  as  well  as  of  the  Princess  of  Wales — Svend  Estridsen  the 
great  great  forefather  of  our  kings — Svend's  death — The  succession 
of  five  of  his  fourteen  sons — The  reign  of  Harald  Hejn  or  Whetstone, 
and  why  he  got  that  name — The  character  of  his  successor  Knud,  known 
as  the  Saint ;  how  he  favoured  the  clergy  and  oppressed  the  laity  ;  what 
came  of  his  conduct — His  murder  and  the  fate  of  his  only  son  Karl — 
The  laws  of  succession  in  Denmark — Olaf-Hunger  ;  the  troubles  of  his 
short  reign—  Erik  Ejegod  succeeds;  his  beauty  and  great  skill  in  arts 
and  exercises— The  canonization  of  Saint  Knud — Erik  and  his  Queen 
Botilda  go  to  the  Holy  Land,  and  die  on  the  way — Niels,  the  last  of 
the  five  king-brothers,  comes  to  the  throne  on  the  death  of  Erik — Knud 
Lavard  ;  his  murder  by  prince  Magnus — The  vengeance  taken  by  Knud's 
brother — Magnus  is  slain,  and  King  Niels  takes  refuge  in  Slesvig,  where 
he  is  killed  by  Knud's  Guild-brothers,  about  sixty  years  after  the  death 
of  Svend  Estridsen,  his  father. 


PART  I. 
SVEND     ESTRIDSEN,   THE   FATHER    OF    DANISH    KINGS. 

Svend  Estridsen,  1047-1076. — WE  have  seen  how  King 
Magnus  the  Good  did  his  best  before  his  death  to  secure  to 
Svend  the  crown  of  Denmark  ;  but  although  in  that  respect 
Svend's  fortune  was  better  than  he  had  any  right  to  expect,  he 


go  SC AND  IN  A  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 

was  not  without  plenty  of  troubles.  In  the  first  place,  King 
Harald  of  Norway,  the  uncle  and  successor  of  Magnus,  would 
not  leave  him  at  peace,  and  whenever  the  Wends  and  other 
pagan  tribes  of  the  Baltic  began  to  attack  one  province  in  Den- 
mark, the  King  of  Norway  was  sure  to  fall  upon  some  other  part 
of  the  kingdom,  and  thus  King  Svend  was  kept  in  a  constant 
state  of  unquiet.  Once  he  only  saved  his  life  after  a  lost  battle 
by  putting  on  the  dress  of  a  herdsman,  and  staying  in  hiding 
with  a  peasant  called  Karl,  whose  wife  not  knowing  as  her 
husband  did  the  rank  of  the  stranger,  roughly  told  him  that  she 
never  had  seen  a  man  so  clumsy  and  ugly  as  he  was.  Although 
the  king  was  obliged  to  bear  the  insult  he  did  not  forget  it,  and 
some  years  later  when  he  gave  the  peasant  a  large  farm  in 
Sjcelland,  he  forbade  him  ever  to  bring  his  wife  there. 

For  seventeen  years  after  the  death  of  Magnus,  Harald  re- 
turned every  summer  with  his  fleet  to  harass  the  poor  Danes, 
who  in  their  distress  called  him  the  "  Lightning  of  the  North," 
"the  Blight  of  the  Danish  islands;"  and  happy  they  were  when 
at  last  Harald,  wishing  to  conquer  England  and  not  caring  to 
leave  a  foe  so  near  home,  made  peace  with  Svend  in  1064.  The 
fate  of  King  Harald  Haardrade,  who  was  defeated  and  slain 
by  the  English  at  the  Battle  of  Stamford  Bridge  in  1066,  did 
not  deter  Svend  from  following  in  his  steps,  and  making  an 
attempt  to  invade  and  conquer  England  in  the  year  1069.  First 
he  sent,  in  1067,  to  William  the  Conqueror  to  demand  homage 
and  tribute  from  him,  and  to  tell  him  that  he,  Svend,  as  the 
nephew  and  heir  of  Knud  the  Great,  was  by  right  of  heritage 
king  of  England.  William  the  Conqueror,  who  had  not  been 
many  months  on  the  English  throne  when  this  message  came  to 
him,  showed  no  anger,  but  returned  greetings  and  handsome 
gifts  to  his  "friend  and  cous'n,"  King  Svend  of  Denmark.  But 
when,  two  years  later,  Svend  despatched  a  fleet  of  240  ships, 
under  the  command  of  his  sons,  Harald  and  Knud,  to  invade 
England,  William  very  soon  proved  he  was  master  of  his 
kingdom,  and  the  young  princes  were  forced  to  return  to 
Denmark  without  having  done  any  of  the  great  deeds  that  had 
been  expected  of  them.  It  was  believed  that  Svend's  brother, 
Asbjorn,  to  whose  care  they  had  been  entrusted  by  their  father, 
had  been  bought  over  to  betray  and  deceive  them,  and  when 


THE  ESTRIDSENS.  91 


he  came  back  to  Sjoelland  with  only  a  remnant  of  the  great 
fleet,  the  king  met  him  in  anger,  and  ordered  him  to  leave  the 
country  and  never  more  set  his  foot  in  Denmark ;  and  so  ended 
this  last  of  all  Danish  attacks  upon  England. 

Svend's  Character. — Svend  was  not  a  very  good  man,  but 
he  was  an  able  ruler,  and  learned  for  the  times  in  which  he 
lived  ;  for  he  was  well  acquainted  with  Church  history,  and  spoke 
several  languages,  amongst  others  Latin,  in  which  he  kept  up  a 
correspondence  with  the  great  Hildebrand,  afterwards  known  as 
Pope  Gregory  VII.  But  although  he  was  a  devout  churchman 
and  caused  several  bishops'  sees  to  be  founded  in  Denmark,  he 
would  not  obey  his  friend  the  Pope  when  he  wrote  to  require 
that  he  should  hold  his  kingdom  as  a  dependency  on  the  Court 
of  Rome.  Unlike  his  father,  Jarl  Ulf,  or  his  uncle,  King  Knud, 
Svend  Estridsen  is  said  to  have  been  wanting  in  good-looks  and 
bodily  strength,  and  to  have  been  a  great  coward;  and  he 
seems  to  have  chosen  his  friends,  not  amongst  the  nobles  of 
his  court,  but  among  learned  churchmen,  for  whose  pursuits  he 
had  more  taste  than  for  those  of  the  bold  knights  and  warriors 
of  his  time.  Svend's  friendship  for  the  scholarly  Adam,  canon  of 
the  Bremen  Cathedral,  has  proved  of  great  value  to  later  ages, 
for  by  the  King's  favour  this  churchman  was  able  to  write 
down  in  his  Chronicle^-  many  things  of  interest  connected  with 
the  history  of  Svend's  forefathers,  and  to  inform  us  of  many 
particulars  in  regard  to  the  habits  and  customs  of  the  Danes 
in  those  times,  which  we  should  not  have  otherwise  known. 

Another  of  Svend's  intimate  friends  was  Bishop  William,  or 
Vilhelm,  as  the  Danish  writers  call  him,  an  English  monk  to 
whom  the  King  had  given  the  see  of  Roeskilde,  and  whose 
sturdy  independence  and  firmness  often  put  his  sovereign's 
friendship  to  a  severe  test,  as  we  shall  see  from  the  following 
account  of  the  manner  in  which  he  is  known  to  have  behaved 
to  him.  It  happened  that  once  on  a  New  Year's  Eve,  when 
the  king's  servants  had  been  making  merry  in  the  palace- 

1  Adam  of  Bremen  wrote  down  in  the  Bremen  Chronicle  for  his  bishop, 
all  that  King  Svend  told  him  of  Denmark.  His  account  of  the  kingdom 
shows  the  misery  to  which  the  pagan  pirates  had  brought  the  land.  "  In 
Jutland,"  he  says,  "men  dare  not  live  near  the  sea-coasts  for  fear  of  sea- 
rovers  ;  and  they  only  till  those  lands  which  lie  inland,  or  far  up  streams." 


92  SCANDINAVIAN  HISTORY. 

hall  of  Roeskilde,  and  drinking  much  more  than  they  ought, 
some  among  them  forgot  the  respect  they  owed  to  their  royal 
master,  and  began  talking  of  his  bad  luck  and  want  of  courage 
in  battle.  Svend  overhearing  their  words,  in  which  there  was  a 
great  amount  of  truth,  grew  very  angry,  and  on  pretence  that 
he  had  reason  to  suspect  treason  gave  orders  for  these  unwise 
jokers  to  be  seized  and  killed,  and  in  accordance  with  these 
commands  they  were  cut  down  on  the  New  Year's  Day,  while 
they  were  at  matins  in  the  same  church  in  which  his  own 
father,  Jarl  Ulf,  had  been  slain. 

Somewhat  later  in  the  morning,  Svend,  clothed  in  his  royal 
robes,  came  into  the  church  and  was  about  to  enter  the 
chancel  when  Bishop  Vilhelm,  who  was  preparing  to  celebrate 
high  mass,  barred  his  entrance.  The  king  tried  to  push  on, 
but  the  prelate  thrust  him  back  with  the  end  of  his  crozier  and 
called  him  a  murderer,  unworthy  to  enter  a  church  which  he 
had  stained  with  the  blood  of  his  fellow-creatures.  The  cour- 
tiers on  hearing  Bishop  Vilhelm's  angry  words  rushed  upon 
him  with  drawn  swords  ;  but  the  king,  struck  by  the  truth  of 
his  reproaches,  left  the  church,  and  returning  to  the  palace 
changed  his  royal  robes  for  the  dress  of  a  penitent.  lie  then 
re-entered  the  church  porch,  where,  bare-headed  and  bare- 
footed, he  waited  till  the  bishop  came  to  receive  his  confession 
and  give  him  absolution.  After  this  Svend  came  for  the  third 
time  to  the  church  door,  but  on  this  last  occasion  he  again  wore 
his  mantle  of  state  and  his  crown,  and  thus  clothed  was  led  to 
the  altar,  when  the  Tc  Deitm  was  sung  and  the  services  of  the 
church  completed.  Three  days  afterwards  Svend,  in  the  pre- 
sence of  a  large  number  of  people,  rose  and  drew  near  the  altar 
of  the  church  in  which  mass  was  being  performed.  Begging  that 
those  present  would  keep  silence  and  listen  to  his  words,  he  con- 
fessed his  sin  of  causing  the  death  of  his  servants,  and  as  a  proof 
of  his  penitence,  made  an  offering  to  the  church  of  half  a  fiardc 
or  Hundred  of  land.  This  district  is  said  to  have  included 
the  ground  on  which  stands  Copenhagen,  the  present  capital 
of  Denmark,  with  all  its  suburbs,  and  the  adjoining  little 
island  of  Ainak.  About  a  hundred  years  later,  these  lands 
were  given  by  Axel,  kno'.vn  as  Absalon,  the  warlike  bishop  oi 
Sjoelland  of  those  times,  to  his  king,  VaUlemar  I.,  and  Axel- 


THE  ESTRIDSENS.  93 


/,  as  the  place  had  been  called  while  it  had  served  as  a 
castle  for  defending  the  country  against  the  attacks  of  sea- 
robbers,  soon  became  known  as  the  Merchant-haven,  or 
"  Kjobenhavn,"  which  we  translate  Copenhagen. 

Sv.end's  name  "  Estridsen? — Svend,  who  is  known  in  Danish 
history  as  Svend  Estridsen,  or  the  son  of  Estrid,  was  so  called 
in  respect  to  the  higher  rank  of  his  mother,  who  was  sister  of 
Knud  the  Great.  If  he  had  followed  the  usual  practice  of  the 
Northmen  and  taken  the  first  name  of  his  father  Ulf  with  the 
addition  of  sen,  meaning  son,  he  would  be  known  as  Svend 
"  Ulfsen." x  The  Jarl  Ulf  was  nearly  related  to  the  royal 
family  of  Norway,  and  therefore  his  son  Svend  could  boast  of 
a  very  high  descent  through  both  his  parents.  In  speaking 
of  the  Great  Knud's  nephew,  Svend  Estridsen,  we  must  not 
forget  that  our  Queen,  as  well  as  the  present  King  of  Denmark, 
and  therefore  the  Prince  of  Wales  as  well  as  the  Princess 
of  Wales,  can  claim  this  king  as  their  common  ancestor,  and 
through  him  may  trace  their  descent  back  to  Gorm  the  Old. 
Queen  Victoria  is  descended  in  a  direct  line  from  King  James 
I.  of  England  and  VI.  of  Scotland  and  his  Queen,  Anne 
daughter  of  King  Frederick  II.  of  Denmark,  and  the  latter 
king,  like  all  the  other  princes  of  the  house  of  Oldenburg, 
traced  his  descent  through  the  female  line  back  to  Svend 
Estridsen,  whose  mother  Estrid  was  great-grand-daughter  of 
Gorm.  Hence  in  reading  the  history  of  Svend  Estridsen  and 
his  descendants  we  must  bear  in  mind  that  we  are  reading  the 
history  of  the  common  ancestors  of  the  royal  families  of  Great 
Britain  and  of  Denmark.  During  three  hundred  years  after  the 
death  of  Svend  Estridsen  the  Danish  crown  was  worn  by 
princes  descended  from  him  in  the  direct  male  line,  but  in 
T37S?  when  Valdemar  III.  "  Atterdag  "  died,  leaving  no  sons, 
this  long  line  of  descent  was  broken,  although  the  Danish 
throne  was  occupied  till  the  middle  of  the  next  century  by  the 
sons  or  grandsons  of  that  king's  daughters.  In  1448  the 
princes  of  the  house  of  Oldenburg,  who  have  since  then  ruled 

1  The  Swedes  add  son  instead  of  sen  to  the  father's  name.  Thus  in 
Swedish  Svend  would  be  known  as  Ulfsson,  or  Estridsson,  and  not  Ulfsen  or 
Estridsen,  as  in  Danish. 


94  SC AND  IN  A  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 

over  Denmark,  gained  the  Danish  throne  in  right  of  their 
descent  through  Princess  Rikissa,  daughter  of  King  Erik 
Clipping,  and  thus  Denmark  during  the  thousand  years  of  her 
history  has  changed  dynasties  less  frequently  than  almost  any 
other  country  of  Europe. 

PART  II. 

SVEND     ESTRIDSEN'S     SONS. 

Harald  Hejn,  1076-1080. — When  Svend  Estridsen  died,  in 
1076,  he  left  as  many  as  fourteen  sons,  and  of  these  five  were 
in  turn  kings  of  Denmark.  Their  reigns  did  not  add  much  to 
the  comfort  of  the  Danish  people,  who  had  little  but  want, 
trouble,  and  war  while  these  princes  ruled  over  them,  and  as 
there  is  not  much  that  is  pleasant  to  tell  of  these  five  kings,  we 
need  not  linger  long  over  the  story  of  their  troubled  reigns. 

Svend's  eldest  son  Harald,  who  ruled  the  kingdom  of  Den- 
mark only  four  years,  from  1076  to  1080,  that  is,  in  the 
time  of  William  I.  of  England,  was  surnamed  Hejn,  or  Whet- 
stone, from  his  always  giving  way  when  he  met  with  things  that 
were  hard  to  bear.  From  what  we  read  of  him  we  cannot 
suppose  that  his  subjects  were  very  sorry  when  he  died  and  was 
followed  on  the  throne  by  his  next  brother,  Knud,  a  quick-tem- 
pered, brave  and  energetic  young  prince.  This  king,  however, 
soon  lost  the  affection  of  his  subjects  by  his  harshness  in  asking 
for  all  kinds  of  labour  from  the  working  classes.  When  they 
begged  that  he  would  spare  them  so  many  forced  tasks,  he 
threatened  to  shut  up  all  the  oak-tree  forests  in  which  the 
herdsmen  had  been  used  to  feed  their  pigs,  and  to  hinder  the 
fishermen  from  following  their  trade  in  any  of  the  Danish  waters, 
on  pretence  that  every  fjord,  sound,  and  bay,  no  less  than 
every  piece  of  woodland  in  the  kingdom,  belonged  to  him  to 
give  or  withhold  as  he  pleased.  Me  was  very  severe  to  pirates, 
which  in  these  days  we  should  think  was  only  right  and  proper, 
and  a  very  good  thing  for  all  honest  folks.  The  Danes,  how- 
ever, had  not  yet  learnt  to  look  upon  piracy  as  anything  very 
bad,  and  they  were  rather  inclined  to  regard  a  daring  sea- 
robber  as  a  very  grand  kind  of  adventurer  who  had  nothing  in 
common  with  a  thief  on  land.  Thus  it  happened  that  one 


THE  ESTRIDSENS.  95 

winter  when  the  king  went  over  to  Bornholm,  and  caused  one 
of  the  chief  men  of  the  island,  called  Orgil  Ragnarsen,  who  had 
been  caught  in.  the  act  of  robbing  and  boarding  ships  at  sea,  to 
be  hanged  in  sight  of  all  the  islanders,  the  Danish  people  took 
the  matter  up  as  a  grievance,  and  made  as  much  clamour  about 
it  as  if  Knud  had  taken  the  life  of  an  honest  innocent  man. 

Many  of  Knud's  acts  were  however  very  unjust,  and  the 
marked  favour  which  he  showed  to  the  bishops,  by  raising  them 
to  the  rank  of  the  highest  nobles  in  the  land,  gave  great  offence. 
When  he  tried  to  enforce  the  payment  of  tithes  to  the  clergy, 
and  threatened  if  the  people  refused  he  would  make  them  give 
to  the  crown  much  larger  sums  of  money,  there  was  a  general 
rising  and  tumult  all  over  the  kingdom.  "  Give  us  what  fines 
you  please,"  cried  the  angry  peasants  at  the  great  meetings  of 
the  nation  where  the  king  made  this  demand  ;  "we  will  pay 
anything  rather  than  leave  to  our  children  such  a  burden  as 
these  tithes  that  you  ask  of  us  !  " 

The  king  and  the  bishops  were  greatly  incensed  at  the  spirit 
shown  by  the  Danish  people,  who  then  and  for  a  long  time 
afterwards,  were  very  distrustful  of  the  clergy.  The  latter  acted 
with  such  harshness  and  cruelty  to  all  the  poorer  and  working 
classes  that  a  revolt  broke  out,  and  King  Knud  on  his  progress 
through  his  kingdom  was  everywhere  followed  by  cries  of 
hatred  and  anger.  After  treating  the  peasants  of  Jutland  with 
much  severity,  he  crossed  over  to  the  island  of  Fyen  to  get 
out  of  the  way  of  their  complaints ;  but  this  did  not  save  him, 
for  a  large  body  of  Jutlanders  followed  him  and  overtook  him 
just  as  he  was  seeking  refuge  within  St.  Alban's  Church,  in  the 
town  of  Odense.  The  citizens  now  joined  the  angry  Jut- 
landers,  and  a  crowd  soon  closed  round  the  church,  against 
whose  doors  they  beat  with  clubs  and  staves  and  stones,  calling  : 
"  \Vhere  is  Knud,  our  God-forsaken  king?  Let  him  come  forth 
and  show  himself!  He  has  carried  arms  long  enough  against 
the  rights  and  property  of  us  Danes  !  It  is  full  time  we  made 
an  end  of  this  ! "  After  a  long  and  fierce  attack  the  doors 
burst  under  the  blows  aimed  at  them,  and  the  enraged  peasants 
rushed  with  noisy  shoutings  into  the  church,  where  King  Knud, 
feeling  that  his  last  hour  had  come,  was  kneeling  before 
the  altar,  while  his  brothers  Benedict  and  Erik,  at  the  head 


96  SCA  ND1NA  VIA  N  II IS  TOR  Y. 

of  a   few  faithful    friends    and    serving    men    stood   ready    to 
defend  him. 

"  Now  King  Knud  I  will  pay  you  for  stealing  my  cows  !  "  cried 
one.  "  Take  that,  in  return  for  robbing  me  of  my  oxen  and  my 
horses!"  shouted  another,  as  one  by  one  they  rushed  forward 
and  struck  wildly  at  all  persons  within  their  reach.  Bene 
diet  was  cut  down,  and  the  murderers,  pushing  aside  his  body 
threw  themselves  on  Knud,  who  without  lifting  a  hand  to  defend 
himself,  fell  dead  before  the  altar  struck  by  a  spear  which  had 
been  thrown  at  him  from  a  distance.  His  brother  Erik  made 
his  escape,  but  seventeen  of  the  king's  servants  were  slain  with 
him  ;  and  thus  Knud  paid  with  his  life  for  the  unwise  eagerness 
he  had  shown  in  raising  the  power  and  wealth  of  the  Church  at 
the  expense  of  the  laity.  The  clergy  proved  their  grateful 
sense  of  his  efforts  in  their  favour  by  getting  the  Pope  to  have 
him  counted  as  a.  saint,  and  they  took  such  pains  to  make  the 
people  believe  that  miracles  were  done  through  his  help,  that  by 
degrees  he  came  to  be  honoured  as  the  patron  saint  of  Denmark.1 

King  Knud's  only  son,  Karl,  met  with  a  similar  fate  as  his 
father  when  he  was  about  the  same  age.  His  widowed  mother. 
Queen  Adda,  had  fled  from  Denmark  as  soon  as  she  heard 
of  her  husband's  murder,  and  had  carried  the  little  prince,  who 
was  then  a  boy  of  three  years  of  age,  with  her  to  Bruges,  to  tlv> 
court  of  her  brother  Count  Robert  of  Flanders.  In  the  rour-c 
of  time  the  Danish  prince  was  allowed  to  succeed  his  uncle  ns 
Count  of  Flanders,  where  he  was  known  as  Charles  the  Dane, 
and  ruled  from  1119  till  1127  in  the  time  of  our  Henry  I.;  bit 
having  like  his  father.  King  Knud,  shown  too  much  favour 
t.o  the  clergy  and  been  too  strict  and  harsh  to  his  people,  tlu-v 
rose  against  him,  and  following  him  in  anger  to  the  church  of 
Our  Lady  at  Bruges,  where  he  had  taken  refuge,  they  slew  him 
before  the  altar. 

1   In    the  year    IIOI,    Knud  was   canonized,   and    his   remains    were   laid 

within  a,  splendid  shrine  and    kept  in  St.    Knud's  c 

Soon  afterward^  jjiiild-i  or  brotherhoods  wen;  e-t 

placed  under  hi-,   protection.      These   guilds  ha> 

ed  only  for  purposes  of 
s  and  sisters  also  met 
i  general  held  in  honour 


religion   and   charity,    hut    by   decrees  the   l>n>thc 
together  at  feasts  and  merry-makings,  which  were 


of  the  anniversary  of  the  foundation  of  their  society. 


THE  ESTRIDSENS.  97 


PART  III. 
LAWS     OF     DENMARK. 

Olaf-Hunger,  1086-1095. — According  to  the  old  laws  of  Den- 
mark, the  people  had  the  right  to  choose  their  kings,  and  it  was 
usual,  although  it  does  not  appear  that  it  was  necessary,  for  them 
to  make  their  choice  among  the  sons,  brothers,  or  nearest  male 
heirs  of  the  former  king.  They  in  most  cases  gave  the  crown 
to  the  next  heir,  but  the  eldest  son  of  the  sovereign  had  no 
right  whatever  to  take  the  title  of  king  on  the  death  of  his  father 
unless  the  people  at  the  Thing,  or  National  Parliament,  had 
given  a  promise  beforehand  that  they  would  have  him  for  their 
ruler.  When  Knud  was  murdered  no  one  seemed  to  think  of 
choosing  his  little  son,  who  with  his  mother  was  hurrying  out 
of  Denmark,  and  the  people  at  once  offered  the  crown  to 
Knud's  brother,  Prince  Olaf.  It  is  very  likely  that  the  mur- 
derers of  the  late  king  were  the  more  anxious  to  give  the 
crown  to  Olaf,  because  he  had  once  joined  the  rebels  against 
Knud  and  his  bishops,  and  on  that  account  had  been  seized  by 
his  brother  and  forced  to  leave  the  country.  He  had  then 
taken  refuge  amongst  his  wife's  friends  in  Flanders,  or,  as  some 
say,  he  had  been  sent  to  Bruges  in  chains,  and  kept  a  close 
prisoner  by  Knud's  orders  ;  and  he  now  found  great  trouble  in 
getting  back  to  Denmark,  for  Count  Robert  of  Flanders,  the 
uncle  of  little  Prince  Karl,  refused  to  release  him,  but  at  last 
the  Danes  paid  a  heavy  ransom  for  him,  and  he  was  thus 
enabled  to  return  to  his  own  country.1 

Olaf's  reign,  which  is  counted  from  Knud's  murder  in 
1086,  and  lasted  till  1095,  was  a  very  unhappy  one  on  account 

i  The  right  of  choosing  a  king  rested  almost  wholly  at  this  time  in 
Denmark  with  the  noble-free  men  and  the  Bonder,  or  peasant-free  men. 
The  nobles  had  no  titles  in  Denmark  till  more  than  600  years  later.  The 
clergy  only  by  degrees  and  very  slowly  gained  a  voice  at  the  great  National 
Things,  and  the  burgher-class  cannot  be  said  to  have  existed  till  after  this 
period,  for  they  owed  their  rise  to  the  formation  of  guilds  of  trade,  which 
are  not  heard  of  in  Danish  history  till  after  the  time  of  St.  Knud. 

H 


98  SCANDINA  VIAN  HISTOR  Y. 

of  the  grievous  famine  which  troubled  the  land  all  the  years 
he  ruled,  and  which  gained  for  him  the  unpleasant  surname 
of  "  Hunger?'  The  bishops  tried  to  persuade  the  people 
that  the  want  and  distress  in  the  country  were  sent  direct 
from  God  to  plague  the  land  on  account  of  the  murder  of 
the  pious  King  Knud,  and  that  other  kingdoms  were  not 
thus  cursed.  And  they  and  their  clergy  in  their  sermons  told 
the  Danes  that  while  "  for  seven  heavy  years  they  had  seen 
dry  springs  and  hot  summers  burn  up  the  grain  and  straw,  and 
wet  autumns  hinder  the  corn  from  ripening,  the  Christians  of 
other  lands  had  overflowing  crops  and  rich  and  early  harvests." 
But  these  statements  were  not  true,  for  the  real  fact  was  that 
England,  Germany,  France,  and  Italy  were  at  that  time  visited 
by  the  same  bad  seasons,  during  which  men  and  beasts  died  of 
want  and  disease;  towns  and  villages  were  flooded  with  the 
overflowing  of  streams  and  lakes  ;  and  domestic  animals  and 
birds,  finding  the  houses  deserted  and  their  masters  unable  to 
give  them  food,  betook  themselves  to  the  woods  and  moors 
and  grew  wild  again. 

Had  Olaf  done  his  best  to  store  up  the  grain  and  fruits  of 
the  earth,  to  drain  his  lands,  and  keep  his  people  active  and 
sober,  he  might  have  saved  them  and  himself  much  trouble. 
But  he  did  nothing  to  turn  away  the  evil  of  some  bad  seasons, 
and  spent  his  time  in  feasting  and  drinking,  and  his  money  in 
keeping  up  more  state  at  his  court  than  any  other  king  had 
done  before  his  time;  and  when  he  died  in  the  year  1095  at  an 
early  age,  no  one  seemed  to  regret  him. 

Erik  Ejcgod,  1095-1103. — Prince  Erik,  who  had  made  his 
escape  from  the  church  of  St.  Alban  in  Odense,  when  his 
brother  King  Knud  was  murdered,  was  chosen  by  the  people 
to  succeed  Olaf.  Good  seasons  came  back  with  the  beginning 
of  his  reign,  and  therefore  his  subjects  looked  upon  him  with 
feelings  of  love  and  respect.  His  great  beauty,  which  gained 
for  him  the  name  of  Ejegod,  or  "good  for  the  eyes,"  made  him 
a  special  favourite  among  the  Danes,  who  felt  proud  of  their 
tall  handsome  king.  Erik  had  the  blue  eyes  and  long,  flow- 
ing light  hair,  which  were  praised  in  the  folk-lore  of  the  North 
as  having  always  belonged  to  the  noblest  of  the  vikingar 
of  old.  He  was  noted  for  his  strength  and  his  skill  in  warlike 


THE  ESTRIDSENS.  99 

exercises,  and  for  his  knowledge  of  the  eight  arts  which  were 
required  of  a  well-born,  accomplished  Northern  knight  and 
warrior.  These  eight  arts  were :  riding,  swimming,  skating, 
steering,  throwing  javelins,  playing  chess,  playing  the  harp,  and 
composing  verses.  To  these  Erik  added  the  gift  of  speaking 
many  languages,  so  that  when  he  journeyed  through  different 
lands  on  his  way  to  Rome,  he  could  converse  with  the  natives  of 
each  country  in  their  own  tongue.  And  as  he  was  also  very 
friendly  in  his  manners,  free  in  giving  to  the  poor,  quick  of 
tongue,  and  merry  of  heart,  we  need  not  wonder  that  this  king, 
who  was  moreover  handsomer  and  taller  than  any  of  his  sub- 
jects, and  had  the  strength  of  four  ordinary  men,  should  have 
been  the  idol  of  his  people.  He  ruled  justly  for  the  most  part, 
and  defended  his  country  from  the  Wends  and  other  pagan 
pirates,  who  had  for  many  years  before  his  time  sorely  plagued 
the  poor  Danes,  and  obliged  them  to  forsake  their  lands  near 
the  sea,  and  retire  beyond  the  thick  woods  into  the  interior. 

On  Erik's  first  pilgrimage  to  Rome  in  1098,  he  secured  from 
the  pope,  Urban  II.,  a  promise  that  his  brother  King  Knud 
should  be  counted  as  a  saint,  and  on  his  return  to  Denmark 
the  ceremonies  of  his  canonization  took  place  with  great  pomp 
at  Odense,  in  the  church  known  since  then  as  St.  Knud's.  The 
year  after  this  event  (in  1102)  King  Erik  went  for  the  second 
time  on  a  pilgrimage,  in  order  that  he  might  make  atonement 
for  the  murder  of  one  of  his  servants.  His  subjects  had  begged 
him  to  remain  at  home,  and  had  even  offered  to  give  to  the  third 
of  their  substance  for  a  blood  fine,  and  for  the  masses  which 
he  wished  to  purchase  at  Rome  and  Jerusalem,  but  he  was 
resolved  to  go  himself,  and  so  he  and  his  queen  Botilda  set 
forth,  but  neither  lived  to  enter  the  Holy  City.  King  Erik 
died  in  1103  in  the  isle  of  Cyprus,  and  the  queen  soon  after- 
wards within  sight  of  the  gates  of  Jerusalem,  near  which  she 
was  buried. 

Great  was  the  grief  of  the  Danes  on  hearing  of  the  death  of 
their  much-loved  king.  For  a  time  they  would  not  believe  that 
he  could  be  dead,  but  when  there  remained  no  further  doubt  of 
it,  they  made  choice  of  his  brother  Niels  to  succeed  him,  setting 
aside  an  elder  son  of  Svend  Estridsen  on  account  of  his  weak- 
ness, and  passing  by  the  sons  of  Erik  Ejegod.  Some  of  the 

H  2 


SCANDINA  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 


latter  were  still  very  young,  and  the  eldest,  called  Harald  Kesia, 
who  had  ruled  the  kingdom  during  his  -father's  absence,  had 
shown  himself  so  cruel  and  unjust,  that  the  people  feared  to 
choose  him  or  any  of  his  brothers. 


PART  IV. 

REVENGE     OF     THE    GUILD-BROTHERS.1 

Niels,  1104-1134. — Niels,  who  reigned  from  1104  to  1134, 
in  the  time  of  our  King  Henry  I.,  was  a  poor  weak  ruler  ;  and 
as  he  could  not  keep  his  kingdom  free  from  pirates,  he  gave 
Slesvig,  or  South  Jutland  as  it  was  then  called,  to  his  nephew 
Knud,  the  son  of  Erik  Ejegod,  who  was  known  as  Knud 
Lavard,  or  Hlaford,  the  old  northern  word  for  chief  lord,  or 
master.1  Under  this  warlike  prince,  the  Wends  were  so  tho- 
roughly beaten  that  during  his  life  Denmark  had  peace  from 
these  cruel  foes.  Knud  had  been  trained  to  arms  at  the  court 
of  Lothaire,  duke  of  Saxony,  and  when  the  latter  prince  was 
chosen  Emperor  of  Germany,  he  gave  him  in  reward  for  his 
defence  of  the  Holstein  lands  from  the  attacks  of  the  pagan 
Wends,  the  title  of  King  of  the  Obotrites,  and  with  his  own 
hands  placed  the  crown  upon  his  head.  These  honours  roused 
the  envy  of  his  cousin  Magnus,  the  son  of  King  Niels,  who 
feared  that  on  the  death  of  his  father  the  people  might  pass 
him  over,  and  choose  Knud  to  reign  over  them.  To  avoid 
this  danger,  Magnus  made  up  his  mind  to  put  Knud  out  of 
the  way ;  and  in  order  to  effect  this  purpose,  he  persuaded  his 
father,  Niels,  to  invite  him  to  spend  the  Yule-tide  with  them  in 
the  royal  castle  of  Roeskilde.  Knud,  who  did  not  suspect  the 
evil  intentions  of  his  kinsmen,  came  at  their  request,  bringing 
with  him  only  a  small  retinue  of  men-at-arms ;  and  after 
spending  the  Yule-week  in  the  feasts  and  games  usual  in  those 

1  Tliis  Knud  married  Ingeborg,  a  daughter  of  Mistislav,  Grand-Duke  of 
Novogorod,  and  their  only  son,  who  was  born  about  the  time  of  Knud's 
murder  (Jan.  1131),  received  the  name  Vladimir  from  his  Russian  great- 
grandfather. Tliis  name  was  softened  by  the  Danes  into  Voldemar  or 
Valdemar. 


THE  ESTRIDSENS. 


times  he  took  friendly  leave  of  the  king,  and  set  forth  on  his 
way  home.  Then  Magnus,  on  pretence  of  wishing  to  consult 
him  on  some  family  matters,  rode  after  him  with  a  large  band 
of  armed  men,  and.  attacking  him  as  he  was  resting  in  a  wood 
near  the  town  of  Ringsted,  killed  him  before  he  could  lift  a 
hand  to  defend  himself. 

Erik  Emun's  Vengeance. — This  deed  brought  no  good  to 
Magnus  or  his  father,  for  as  soon  as  Knud's  brother,  Erik, 
known  afterwards  as  Erik  Emun,  or  the  Boaster,  heard  of  the 
murder  he  made  an  appeal  to  the  people  at  the  great  Thing, 
and  begged  them  to  give  him  men  and  money  to  make  war  on 
his  false  uncle,  King  Niels.  The  Danes,  as  well  as  the  men  of 
the  Slesvig  and  Holstein  provinces,  had  always  held  the  brave 
Knud  "  Lavard "  in  great  esteem,  and  they  therefore  took  up 
arms  and  willingly  gave  Prince  Erik  all  the  help  he  needed 
to  punish  the  murderers  of  his  brother,  so  that  he  soon  found 
himself  strong  enough  to  offer  battle  to  the  royal  troops.  The 
two  armies  met  at  Eodevig  in  Skaania,  in  the  spring  of  1134, 
when  Prince  Magnus  was  slain,  and  all  the  bishops  and  priests 
who  had  come  into  the  field  with  him  were  either  killed  or 
made  captive.  King  Niels  himself  barely  escaped  falling  into 
the  hands  of  the  victors ;  and,  in  the  hurry  of  his  flight  he 
let  himself  be  persuaded  to  cross  the  Belt  to  Slesvig,  not 
thinking  of  the  danger  that  would  befall  him  in  a  town  where 
Knud  Lavard  had  held  his  court,  and  where  he  was  well 
known  and  much  beloved  by  the  citizens. 

Knud  Lavard  had,  moreover,  been  head-master  of  St. 
Knud's  Guild,  or  Company,  which  had  a  law  that  no  brother 
must  leave  the  death  of  another  member  of  his  brotherhood 
unrevenged.  When  the  King  was  begged  to  bear  in  mind  this 
well-known  law,  he  laughed  and  said  :  "  It  would  be  a  shame  if 
Svend  Estridsen's  son,  King  Niels,  should  have  a  fear  of 
cobblers  and  brewers  !"  and  with  these  words  he  rode  boldly 
into  the  courtyard  of  the  royal  palace. 

But  soon  King  Niels  was  made  to  feel  that  cobblers  and 
brewers  could  prove  as  fierce  foes  as  kings  and  princes,  for 
no  sooner  had  he  and  his  men  come  into  the  castle-hall 
than  they  heard  the  outer  gates  closed  behind  them,  and  a 
ringing  of  bells  from  every  belfry  and  tower  in  the  town.  The 


SCANDINA  VI AN  HISTORY. 


watch-word  of  the  guild-brothers  passed  from  street  to  street, 
and  soon  the  market-place  outside  the  castle  swarmed  with 
noisy,  angry  and  fierce  armed  men,  who  were  all  eager  to  take 
vengeance  on  the  father  of  Prince  Magnus,  for  whom,  although 
he  was  their  king,  they  cared  very  much  less  than  for  their  slain 
guild-brother,  the  brave  Knud  Lavard.  The  clergy,  who  wished 
to  prevent  bloodshed,  came  forth  from  their  churches  robed  in 
their  state  vestments  and  bearing  on  high  the  host,  but  the 
guild-brothers  sternly  thrust  them  aside,  and,  making  good 
their  entrance  into  the  palace,  slew  King  Niels  and  all  who 
stood  by  him.  And  thus  died,  in  the  year  1134,  the  last  of 
Svend  Estridsen's  five  king-sons,  about  sixty  years  after  the 
death  of  that  father  and  ancestor  of  all  later  Danish  rulers. 


CHAPTER    VIII. 


THE     VALDEMARS. 


The  time  of  the  Valdemars — The  troubles  that  had  come  upon  Denmark 
after  the  death  of  Niels — Valdemar  the  Great ;  his  early  training  ;  his 
want  of  courage  in  his  youth  ;  his  great  bravery  in  later  years  ;  his 
campaigns  against  the  pagans  in  the  island  of  Rygen — The  downfall  of 
the  temple  of  the  great  god  Svanteveit  at  Arcona  ;  the  trick  by  which 
the  place  was  taken  ;  the  demon  that  the  Danes  said  they  saw — Bishop 
Absalon  ;  his  love  of  his  king  and  the  church,  and  his  contempt  for 
peasants  ;  his  quarrels  with  the  people — King  Valdemar's  death — Grief 
of  Danes,  and  sorrow  of  Absalon — Knud  VI.  ;  his  bold  defiance  of  the 
Emperor  ;  his  successes — Absalon's  activity  ;  the  monks  of  Soro  — 
Knud's  death — Valdemar  II.  receives  the  homage  of  the  German  princes. 


PART  I. 
TROUBLES     BEFORE    THE     VALDEMARS. 

Troubled  Times  from  1131  to  1157. — THE  age  of  the  Valde- 
mars, which  began  with  Knud  Lavard's  only  son  Valdemar,  is 
the  most  brilliant  period  of  the  history  of  Denmark,  and  the 
Danish  people  from  those  early  times  to  the  present  day  have 
continued  to  love  the  name  and  memory  of  Valdemar  I.  and 
of  his  sons  Knud  and  Valdemar,  and  to  look  back  to  those 
princes  as  the  greatest  and  best  rulers  they  have  ever  had. 
Young  Valdemar  grew  up  in  the  midst  of  civil  wars,  troubles, 
and  sorrows  of  all  kinds,  for  the  kingdom  was  in  a  wretched 
state  during  the  latter  part  of  King  Niels'  reign  as  well  as  after 
his  murder  in  1134,  when  his  nephew  Erik  Emun  was  raised 
to  the  throne.  Erik  was  a  brave  man,  and  kept  the  country  free 
from  the  attacks  of  the  Wendish  pirates,  which,  as  we  have 
seen,  had  long  proved  a  heavy  scourge  to  the  people  living 


io4  SCANDINA  VIAN  HISTOR  Y. 

on  the  coasts  ;  but  his  cruelty  in  causing  his  brother  Harald 
Kezia  together  with  his  ten  sons  to  be  murdered,  made  the 
Danes  hate  and  fear  him.  His  nephew,  Erik  the  Lamb,  who 
was  chosen  king  after  him,  let  his  kingdom  be  overrun  by  sea- 
robbers  and  spent  his  time  with  the  monks,  leaving  his  poor 
subjects  to  defend  themselves  until  they  came  to  despise  him 
as  much  as  they  had  dreaded  his  uncle.  When  Erik  the  Lamb 
died  in  1147,  after  having  taken  the  vows  of  a  monk  in  St. 
Knud's  Abbey  in  Oclense,  a  great  civil  war  broke  out  which 
lasted  ten  years.  During  this  time  the  Bonder,  or  peasants, 
suffered  severely,  and  when  a  Thing  was  called  in  1157  to 
discuss  the  question  of  choosing  a  king,  they  had  become  so 
poor  and  powerless  that  the  nobles  and  bishops  did  not  think 
of  consulting  them,  when  they  made  choice  of  Knud  Lavard's 
son  Prince  Valdemar  to  be  their  ruler.  There  were  other 
changes,  too.  in  the  manner  of  proclaiming  the  new  king 
which  showed  how  much  power  the  higher  classes  had  gained. 
In  former  times  when  a  Danish  king  had  been  chosen  to  reign 
over  the  people,  it  was  the  custom  that  he  should  go  from 
town  to  town,  from  hundred  to  hundred,  and  from  province 
to  province,  to  show  himself  and  receive  the  homage  of  all  his 
subjects.  But  Valdemar  who  had  been  abroad,  and  liked 
German  and  foreign  fashions,  despised  making  this  kind  of 
royal  progress,  and  instead  of  it  he  caused  himself  to  be 
crowned  in  a  church  by  the  bishops,  after  having  been  anointed 
with  holy  oil,  decked  in  royal  robes  of  state,  adorned  with  a 
finely  jewelled  cap  on  his  head,  and  invested  with  a  golden 
sceptre. 

Valdemar,  1157-1182. — When  Valdemar  I.  came  to  the 
throne  he  found  no  money,  no  soldiers,  no  trade,  and  no 
order  in  the  kingdom.1  But  when  he  died  he  left  to  his  son 
a  nourishing,  well  defended,  busy,  and  peaceful  monarchy,  to 

1  It  is  stated  by  some  writers  that  to  secure  support  from  the  side  of 
Germany,  lie  made  an  alliance  with  the  Emperor  Frederick  Barbarossa, 
and  recogni/.ed  him  as  his  suzerain,  doing  homage  to  him  as  his  vassal 
when  he  visited  his  court  in  1162.  Valdemar's  friend  Axel  Ilvide,  known 
as  Bishop  Absalon,  had  implored  the  king  not  to  take  this  step,  which 
did  not,  however,  entail  upon  Valdemar  any  of  the  usual  duties  of  a 
vassal,  and  must  therefore  have  beer,  more  of  a  ceremony  than  a  formal 
act  of  submission. 


THE  VALDEMARS.  105 


which  he  had  added  large  tracts  of  land  on  the  pagan  shores 
of  the  Baltic,  where  the  Wends  and  Esthonians  had  been 
made  to  submit  to  him,  and  to  receive  Christian  teachers 
and  renounce  their  cruel  heathen  practices. 

In  the  course  of  his  reign  Valdemar  made  as  many  as 
twenty  great  expeditions  against  these  heathen  pirates,  at  all 
seasons  of  the  year,  not  sparing  himself  from  any  labour  or 
hardship.  In  the  earliest  of  these  expeditions  he  did  not, 
however,  show  much  bravery ;  and  he  so  often  turned  back 
on  some  pretence  or  other  that  the  sailors  in  his  fleet  had 
begun  to  think  him  a  coward,  and  once  he  had  heard  some 
of  these  rough  men  laugh  at  him  as  "  a  knight  who  wore  his 
spurs  on  his  toes,  only  to  help  him  to  run  away  the  faster  ! " 
These  taunts  made  him  very  angry,  but  when  he  found  that 
even  his  friend  and  foster-brother  Axel  Hvide,  who  was 
known  later  as  Bishop  Absalon,  felt  contempt  for  his  want  of 
courage,  he  all' at  once  began  to  face  danger  bravely,  and  from 
that  time  till  the  very  close  of  his  life  he  was  never  again 
known  to  shun  any  risk. 

Absalon  was  more  of  a  sailor  or  a  soldier  than  a  churchman, 
and  seemed  to  like  nothing  better  than  to  stand  on  the  deck  of 
his  own  ship  and  give  his  commands  to  the  seamen,  or  to  lead 
them  on  shore  against  an  armed  foe,  and  pursue  with  a  few 
followers  some  fierce  band  of  sea-rovers.  From  his  castle 
Axelborg,  on  the  present  site  of  Copenhagen,  he  kept  a  sharp 
look-out  for  pirates,  and  it  was  not  often  that  this  fortress  was 
without  a  row  of  heads  set  up  in  proof  of  the  vengeance  that 
he  took  on  robbers,  and  as  a  warning  to  others  of  the  fate  thev 
would  meet  with  if  they  chanced  to  fall  into  the  hands  of  King 
Valdemar's  zealous  friend,  Bishop  Absalon.  The  war  against 
the  fierce  pagans  of  the  Baltic  ended  in  1 168  with  the  taking  of 
the  town  of  Arcona,  on  the  island  of  Rygen,  and  the  complete 
destruction  of  the  great  temple  of  the  god  of  the  Slaves,  Svan- 
teveit,  whose  monstrous  four-headed  image  was  torn  down  from 
its  stand  and  burnt  in  the  presence  of  the  islanders. 

This  great  event  was  brought  about  by  the  clever  trick  of  a 
young  Danish  man-at-arms,  who  while  the  army  lay  encamped 
on  the  sea-beach  of  the  Island  of  Rygen,  below  the  town  of 
Arcona,  had  noticed  that  the  high  cliffs  on  which  the  temple  was 


io6  SCANDINA  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 

built  were  honey-combed  by  a  number  of  holes  or  caves,  which 
could  not  be  seen  from  the  ramparts  above,  but  were  easily  per- 
ceived by  looking  from  below  at  the  steep  wall  of  rocks.  One 
day  the  idea  of  turning  these  holes  to  good  account  struck  the 
young  man,  and  without  losing  a  moment  he  arranged  with 
some  of  his  fellow-soldiers  what  was  to  be  done  to  carry  out 
his  plans.  Setting  to  work,  these  young  men  brought  together 
as  much  dry  straw  and  as  many  sticks  as  they  could  collect, 
and  under  pretence  of  playing  at  a  game  of  pitch  and  toss 
which  the  sentries  above  might  watch  if  they  liked,  they  filled  a 
number  of  the  holes  in  the  rock  with  the  sticks  and  the  straw. 
One  of  their  number  then  clambered  up  the  side  of  the  steep 
wall  by  using  spears  and  stones  for  a  ladder,  and  set  light  to 
the  trains.  In  a  few  minutes  to  their  great  joy  they  heard 
the  cracking  sound  of  fire,  and  saw  columns  of  smoke  and  flame 
rise  up  the  face  of  the  rock  and  close  round  the  wooden  spikes 
and  palings  at  its  summit,  which  were  soon  in  a  blaze. 

Arcona  taken. — The  pagans  trembled  with  horror  and  fright 
when  they  first  noticed  flames  circling  round  the  high  mast, 
from  which  floated  the  banner  of  their  great  god  Svanteveit,  but 
before  they  could  rally,  the  Danes,  headed  by  Bishop  Absalon. 
rushed  to  the  assault  and  made  themselves  masters  of  Arcona. 
Then  began  the  ceremony  of  baptizing  the  heathens.  Attended 
by  his  monks,  Bishop  Absalon  laboured  for  two  days  and  two 
nights  in  the  work,  and  only  ceased  when  almost  blinded  with 
want  of  sleep  he  dropped  down  before  the  altar  that  had  been 
set  up  beside  the  fonts,  at  which  the  converts  were  received 
and  signed  with  the  cross. 

When  all  were  baptized,  King  Valdemar  caused  the  huge 
wooden  image  of  the  god  to  be  dragged  amid  loud  war-music 
to  the  open  plain  beyond  the  town,  where  it  was  cut  up  for 
firewood  by  the  serving-men  of  the  army.  Although  the 
islanders  had  been  forced  to  receive  Christian  baptism,  they 
had  not  ceased  to  fear  their  old  gods,  and  nothing  could  per- 
suade them  to  take  part  in  the  removal  and  destruction  of  the 
idol,  for  in  their  ignorance  they  expected  every  moment  to  see 
lightning  descend  from  heaven  to  destroy  the  Danes,  and  to 
punish  their  own  neglect  of  their  god  Svanteveit.  The  Chris- 
tians were  hardly  more  sensible,  for  they  pretended  that  when 


THE   VALDEMARS.  107 


the  image  was  being  carried  out  of  the  temple-gates,  a  horrible 
monster,  spitting  fire  and  brimstone,  burst  from  the  roof  and 
hurled  itself  with  wrathful  howls  from  the  high  cliffs  into  the 
sea  below,  which  opened  to  receive  the  demon,  and  closed  over 
his  head  in  loud  bubbling  waves  of  flame  and  smoke  ! 


PART  II. 
DEATH  OF  VALDEMAR  AND  ABSALON. 

Absalon. — After  these  wars  against  the  heathens  Bishop  Ab- 
salon  continued  to  serve  King  Valdemar  as  a  loving  friend  and 
faithful  servant.  He  was  not,  however,  always  a  good  and  just 
master  to  those  who  were  placed  under  his  power,  and  the  poor 
peasants  on  the  estates  which  belonged  to  him  in  Skaania,  while 
he  was  primate  of  Denmark,  had  great  reason  to  complain  of 
his  harsh  rule.  It  is  said  that  his  bailiffs  forced  the  wives  and 
daughters  of  the  peasants  on  his  lands  to  drag  stones  and  timber 
through  the  forests  in  the  midst  of  a  hard  winter,  while  the  men 
were  busy  building  up  a  fine  house  for  his  use.  At  last  the 
people,  nearly  worn  out  with  their  labours,  refused  to  work  any 
longer ;  and  then  Absalon,  finding  that  he  could  not  compel 
them  to  obey  the  orders  of  his  officers,  crossed  over  the  Sound, 
and  went  to  the  king's  court  at  Vordingborg  in  Sjselland  to  beg 
him  to  come  with  an  army  to  punish  the  disobedient  peasants. 
Valdemar  tried  to  make  his  archbishop  act  with  more  mercy, 
but  when  he  saw  that  Absalon  would  not  listen  to  reason,  he 
set  sail  with  a  number  of  troops  for  the  primate's  estates  in 
Skaania,  declaring  that  no  one  should  ever  say  King  Valdemar 
had  refused  to  give  help  to  his  friend  Absalon  when  he  asked 
for  it.  On  his  arrival,  the  king,  who  was  of  a  kind  and 
loving  nature  and  not  willing  to  make  war  on  his  own  people, 
again  tried  to  restore  peace  between  the  primate  and  his  pea- 
sants. Had  Absalon  been  as  merciful  as  his  royal  master 
things  might  have  come  right  without  the  shedding  of  blood, 
but  he  was  proud  and  could  not  forgive  the  poor  peasants  for 
daring  to  oppose  him,  since  he  was  high-born  and  they  were 
only  serfs.  To  punish  them,  he  caused  all  the  churches  to  be 


io8  SCANDINA  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 

closed,  and  forbade  the  clergy  from  doing  any  of  the  services  of 
religion  as  long  as  the  people  should  refuse  to  perform  the  work 
he  had  set  them  to  do.  This  made  them  more  angry  than  ever, 
and  when  King  Valdemar  landed  in  Skaania  with  Absalon,  he 
found  a  great  crowd  of  peasants  drawn  up  in  battle  array,  on 
and  near  the  bridge  over  the  little  river  Dysia,  which  emptied 
itself  into  the  sea  close  to  the  archbishop's  chief  city  of  Lund.1 
The  rebels  were  only  armed  with  scythes,  wood-axes,  clubs  and 
any  rude  weapons  that  they  could  lay  their  hands  on,  and  when 
Absalon  observed  their  shabby  and  disorderly  appearance,  he 
cried  out  in  a  proud  defiant  tone,  "  This  beggarly  rabble  is  un- 
worthy of  being  cut  down  by  the  swords  of  nobles  and  knights, 
it  will  be  best  to  hunt  the  pack  with  whip  and  lash  ! " 

On  hearing  this  unseemly  remark,  King  Valdemar  reproved 
the  haughty  churchman  by  saying,  "  You  forget,  good  friend, 
that  we  are  dealing  with  men,  and  not  with  dogs  !  " 

The  fight  was  hard  and  long  notwithstanding  the  poor  arms 
and  humble  rank  of  the  bishop's  foes,  but  it  ended  at  last  in  the 
complete  defeat  of  the  peasants  of  Skaania,  who  saw  themselves 
forced  to  pay  tithes  to  the  church,  which  they  had  long 
looked  upon  as  a  cruel  injustice  and  striven  to  resist.-  Soon 
after  these  events  the  good  King  Valdemar  I.  died  at  the  age 
of  fifty-one,  in  the  spring-tide  of  the  year,  1182,  at  the  moment 
that  his  restless  prelate  was  stirring  up  new  troubles. 

Knitd  VI.  1182-1202. — Valdemar  I.  like  many  of  his  fore- 
fathers was  buried  in  the  church  of  Ringsted,  and  as  the  funeral 
procession  headed  by  Bishop  Absalon  drew  near,  a  crowd  ot 
peasants  met  it  and  begged,  with  tears  and  loud  cries  of  grief, 
to  be  allowed  to  carry  the  remains  of  their  beloved  king  to  his 

1  This  great  churchimn  is  known  in  Danish  History  as  "  liishop 
Absalon,"  and  is  seldom  spoken  of  under  his  higher  rank  of  archbishop. 
He  had  been  appointed  to  the  primacy  during  the  life-time  of  the  former 
archbishop,  Kskil,  when  the  latter  gave  up  all  his  dignities  and  retired  to 
the  monastery  of  (Jlaravalle  in  France  in  the  year  1177.  The  primate 
Kskil  took  this  step  from  grief  at  the  treason  of  his  grandsons,  the  princes 
Knud  and  Karl,  who  on  their  father's  side  were  related  to  the  royal  family 
and  who  had  joined  in  a  revolt  against  King  Valdemar. 

-  The  Danish  people  for  many  ages  strove  to  resist  the  payment  of  tithes 
and  to  force  the  clergy  to  marry,  as  they,  like  the  other  Northern  nations, 
had  a  great  dislike  to  the  monkish  system  of  the  church. 


THE  VALDEMARS.  109 


last  resting-place.  When  the  bishop  began  to  read  the  service 
far  the  dead  his  voice  failed  him,  and  he  wept  and  trembled  so 
much  that  he  had  to  be  held  up  by  two  of  the  assistant  monks, 
and  after  all  was  over  the  people  went  sorrowfully  away,  saying 
that  now  Denmark's  shield  and  the  pagan's  scourge  had  been 
taken  from  them,  the  country  would  soon  again  be  overrun  by 
the  fierce  heathen  Wends. 

But  Absalon  ordered  all  things  so  well  for  the  young  prince 
Knud,  Valdemar's  eldest  son,  who  at  the  age  of  twenty  had 
been  proclaimed  king,  that  Denmark  was  able  to  maintain  a 
bold  front  against  all  foes,  whether  pagan  or  Christian,  and 
the  Danish  people  had  cause  to  feel  proud  of  their  gallant  king. 
When  Knud  came  to  the  throne,  the  Emperor  of  Germany, 
Frederick  Barbarossa,  demanded  that  he  should  appear  at  the 
imperial  court  at  Ratisbon  and  receive  the  crown  of  Denmark 
as  a  gift  of  the  empire.  But  so  changed  were  the  power  and 
credit  of  the  Danish  monarchy  since  the  time  when  Valdemar 
the  Great,  much  against  Absalon's  wishes,  had  been  forced  to 
obey  a  summons  of  the  same  kind,  that  Knud  VI.  was  able 
with  bold  words  to  defy  the  power  of  the  empire.  "  Tell  your 
master,"  said  Knud  to  the  envoy  who  brought  the  emperor's 
command  that  the  Danish  king  should  appear  at  Ratisbon  to 
receive  the  crown  from  his  hands,  "  I  am  as  much  monarch  in 
my  own  realm  as  the  kaiser  is  in  his,  and  if  he  has  a  fancy  for 
giving  away  my  crown,  he  had  better  first  find  the  prince  bold 
enough  to  come  and  take  it  from  me  ! " 

After  that  daring  speech  nothing  more  was  said  for  a  long 
time  about  giving  or  taking  the  Danish  crown,  and  Frederick 
Barbarossa,  who  had  more  foes  in  Italy  and  elsewhere  than  he 
well  knew  how  to  deal  with,  was  forced  to  let  the  question  rest 
for  the  time,  but  he  neither  forgave  nor  forgot  the  insult,  and 
he  never  lost  a  chance  during  the  rest  of  his  life  of  stirring 
up  strife  against  Denmark.  In  1184  he  helped  the  pagan 
princes  of  Pomerania  to  invade  the  Danish  islands  with  a  fleet 
of  five  hundred  ships,  and  the  land  would  again  have  been 
overrun  by  the  fierce  heathen  Wends,  if  old  Bishop  Absalon 
had  not  boldly  attacked  and  beaten  off  their  vessels  before  they 
reached  the  coasts  of  Sjoelland.  In  this  encounter  the  pagans 
were  so  thoroughly  routed,  that  when  the  heavv  fog  cleared 


SCANDINA  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 


away  by  which  the  Danes  had  been  able,  unseen,  to  approach 
the  enemy,  only  thirty-five  of  their  ships  remained  fit  to  keep 
out  at  sea,  although  they  had  brought  five  hundred  great 
well-armed  vessels  into  the  fight.  The  king  gave  an  account 
of  Absalon's  great  victory  to  the  people  at  the  National  Thing, 
and  the  fame  of  his  exploits  was  made  the  subject  of  songs 
and  tales  in  every  part  of  Scandinavia,  and  even  among  the 
Vceringjar  at  Miklagaard. 

Knu(Ts  Successes. — After  this  great  victory,  which  brought  all 
Pomerania  and  some  of  Eastern  Prussia  under  the  power  of 
Denmark,  Knud  took  for  himself  and  all  his  successors  the 
title  of  "  King  of  the  Wends  and  other  Slaves,"  and  from  that 
time  to  the  end  of  his  reign,  Knud  by  the  help  of  his  warlike 
brother,  Duke  Valdemar,  went  on  adding  one  district  after  the 
other  to  his  old  dominions  until  he  had  made  himself  master  of 
Hamburgh,  Liibeck,  and  all  the  country  of  Holstein,  Lauenburg 
and  Mecklenburg.  Not  content  with  these  great  successes, 
Knud  was  anxious  to  extend  his  conquests,  and  he  next 
turned  his  arms  against  the  pagan  lands  of  the  Esthonians 
and  Livonians.  As  long  as  his  Danish  troops  were  in  the 
country,  he  found  it  an  easy  matter  to  make  the  people 
declare  themselves  to  be  Christians,  and  attend  the  churches 
which  he  had  caused  to  be  built ;  but  no  sooner  were  his 
armies  withdrawn  than  the  natives  returned  to  their  old  heathen 
practices,  and  thus  little  progress  was  made  towards  the  spread 
of  Christianity  in  those  pagan  lands  on  the  south  of  the  Baltic. 

In  the  meanwhile  there  was  no  lack  of  trouble  at  home 
while  the  Danish  flag  was  being  planted  on  foreign  ground. 
The  emperor  had  found  it  easy  to  raise  foes  in  Denmark  against 
King  Knud,  and  by  his  help  a  very  serious  rebellion  was  soon 
kindled  in  Slesvig,  the  object  of  which  was  to  set  on  the  throne 
Valdemar,  Bishop  of  Slesvig,  who  was  a  grandson  of  that  Prince 
Magnus  who  had  slain  Knud  Lavard,  the  grandfather  of  King 
Knud  and  of  his  brother  Prince  Valdemar.  The  latter  had 
been  made  governor  of  all  South  Jutland,  and  to  him  the  task 
was  now  given  of  putting  down  the  Slesvig  rebels,  which  he 
did  so  quickly  and  so  thoroughly,  that  all  the  schemes  of  the 
emperor  to  injure  the  Danish  monarch  failed.  Bishop  Valdemar 
was  taken  captive  by  his  active  young  namesake,  and  was 


THE  VALDEMARS.  in 


treated  by  him  with  great  cruelty,  for  he  was  chained  and 
thrown  into  the  dungeon  of  Soborg  Castle,  where  he  was  kept  for 
many  years  in  painful  and  close  confinement,  an  act  of  injus- 
tice and  cruelty,  which,  as  we  shall  see,  brought  a  bitter  return 
to  Prince  Valdemar.  Bishop  Valdemar's  ally  Count  Adolf  of 
Holstein  was  also  forced  to  submit,  and  his  land  was  seized  on 
by  Duke  Valdemar  who  threw  the  unhappy  count  into  the  dun- 
geons of  Soborg. 

The  latter  years  of  Knud  were  disturbed  by  disputes  with 
Philip  Augustus  of  France,  whose  cruel  conduct  to  his  queen, 
Ingeborg,  the  Danish  king's  sister,  gave  rise  to  much  trouble 
both  in  France  and  in  Denmark  and  led  the  pope  more  than 
once  to  excommunicate  the  French  monarch  and  his  people. 
Bishop  Absalon  went  on  to  the  last  days  of  his  life  working 
for  the  good  of  King  Knud  and  his  brother  Valdemar,  whom  he 
had  loved  and  cared  for  from  their  childhood.  These  princes 
owed  to  him  much  of  the  skill  in  knightly  arts  for  which  they 
were  noted,  but  he  had  taken  care  that  they  should  be  adepts 
in  the  learning  as  well  as  the  warlike  exercises  and  athletic 
sports  of  their  age,  and  had  caused  them  to  be  instructed  in 
all  the  historical  knowledge  which  could  be  gained  in  those 
times.  Absalon  was  a  kind  friend  to  those  who  cared  for 
learning,  and  he  encouraged  Saxo  Grammaticus  and  his  friend 
Svend  Aagesen  to  collect  all  the  popular  Danish  traditions 
and  historical  tales  that  could  be  learnt  among  the  old  Skalds 
and  poets ;  giving  money  to  them  and  to  the  other  monks  in 
Soro  monastery  to  enable  them  to  carry  out  their  search  for 
these  remains.1 

Absalon  died  in  the  year  1201,  and  a  few  months  later  the 
death  of  Knud  VI.  opened  the  path  to  the  throne  to  his  brother 
Prince  Valdemar,  who  was  now  the  nearest  heir,  as  the  late 

1  See  Chapter  II.  Bishop  Absalon,  who  had  studied  at  the  University  of 
Paris,  was  learned  for  the  age  in  which  he  lived.  He  spent  all  his  large 
fortune  in  enriching  the  monasteries  of  Esrom,  Vitskb'l,  Ringsted  and  Oein, 
which  had  been  founded  under  his  predecessor,  the  primate  Eskil,  who  had 
been  the  first  to  call  Cistercian  monks  into  Denmark.  Under  Eskil  and 
Absalon  the  Dani-h  Church  acquired  special  canonical  laws,  and  the 
chapters  first  claimed  the  right  of  choosing  their  bishops,  independently  of 
the  sovereign's  wishes  and  only  subject  to  the  pope's  approval. 


SCANDINA  VI AN  HISTOK  Y. 


king  had  left  no  children.  Valdemar  was  in  Northern  Germany 
at  the  time  he  heard  of  his  brother's  death,  and  so  great  had 
been  his  success  over  his  enemies,  that  the  princes  of  Holstein, 
Lauenburg,  Pomerania,  Rygen  and  Mecklenburg,  without 
waiting  to  see  on  whom  the  choice  of  the  Danish  Thing  would 
fall,  at  once  did  homage  to  him  in  a  solemn  court,  held  at 
Liibeck,  where  the  Hanse  Leaguers  joined  them  in  accepting 
Valdemar  for  their  sovereign  lord. 


CHAPTER   IX. 

DENMARK  FROM    I2O2    TO    I25Q. 

The  greatness  of  Denmark  under  Valdemar  Sejr ;  his  successes  for  twenty 
years — The  sudden  blow  by  which  all  the  glory  of  the  Danish  Mon- 
archy was  thrown  down — The  fatal  hunt  on  Lyo — Valdemar  and  his 
son  gagged,  bound,  and  carried  away  by  night — They  are  kept  captive 
in  Germany  for  three  years — Their  hard  fate — Cruelty  of  Black  Henry  ; 
Count  Albert  of  Orlamunde  tries  to  rescue  them  ;  is  defeated  and  put 
in  the  same  dungeon  with  Valdemar — Valdemar's  return  to  Denmark  ; 
nearly  made  captive  a  second  time  ;  his  merits  in  peace  ;  his  law- 
books  ;  his  death  ;  his  two  wives  ;  their  sons  ;  the  fame  of  Valdemar 
among  the  Danes— The  troubles  under  Valdemar's  sons  and  grandsons 
—Erik  ;  his  disputes  with  his  brothers  ;  his  wars  ;  his  nickname  Plov- 
peng  ;  his  visit  to  Slesvig — The  conversation  of  the  brothers — Abel's  rage 
— Erik  murdered  ;  his  body  sunk  in  the  Slie— -Abel's  false  oath  of 
innocence  ;  his  choice  as  King ;  his  murder — The  recovery  of  Erik's 
body — Christopher  I.;  his  disputes  with  the  clergy;  excommunicated; 
conduct  of  people;  Christopher's  murder. 

PART  I. 
DENMARK    UNDER    VALDEMAR    II.   (SEJR)    AND     HIS     SONS. 

Valdemar  II.  1202-1241.— NEVER  in  the  whole  period  of  her 
existence  had  Denmark  been  in  so  prosperous  and  glorious  a 
condition  as  under  the  earlier  part  of  Valdemar  II.'s  rule. 
His  many  conquests  gained  for  him  the  well-merited  title  of 
"Sejr,"  the  conqueror,  and  his  great  merits  as  a  lawgiver 
and  a  ruler  secured  him  the  love  of  the  Danish  people,  who, 
not  only  in  his  own  times,  but  to  the  present  day,  have  looked 
upon  him  as  the  best  and  noblest  of  the  kings  of  Denmark. 
Soon  after  he  came  to  the  throne  Valdemar  overcame  his  enemy 
Adolf,  Count-Duke  of  Holstein,  and  compelled  him  to  give  up 

I 


1 14  SCANDINA  VI AN  HIS70R  Y. 

his  duchy  and  his  other  lands,  which  were  at  once  granted  by 
the  king  to  his  own  nephew,  Albert  of  Orlamuncle,  who  under 
the  title  of  Duke  of  North-Albingia  ruled  over  the  Slesvig-Hol- 
stein  dominions,  and  kept  the  Danish  frontiers  well  protected 
from  German  invaders.  Valdemar  also  subdued  and  annexed 
Pomerania,  and  in  1217  the  German  emperor  with  the  sanction 
of  the  pope  rewarded  the  Danish  king's  devotion,  by  giving  to 
him  and  future  kings  of  Denmark  all  the  territories  north  of 
the  Elbe  and  the  Elde,  and  thus  made  him  actual  master  of  great 
part  of  Northern  Germany. 

The  princes  of  the  German  Empire  were  indignant  with  the 
emperor  for  thus  extending  the  power  of  the  Danish  king  at 
their  expense,  and  they  formed  conspiracies  against  him  and 
tried  to  oppose  him,  but  without  effect,  and  one  by  one  the 
different  princes  were  forced  to  submit.  The  most  vindictive 
of  Valdemar's  many  enemies  was  his  kinsman  and  namesake, 
Valdemar,  Bishop  of  Slesvig,  who  after  being  defeated  when 
heading  a  rebellion  in  Knud's  reign,  and  having  been  kept  in 
close  captivity  for  fourteen  years,  had  been  released  in  1206  at 
the  earnest  entreaties  of  Valdemar's  gentle  queen,  Dagmar. 
This  man,  who  had  become  archbishop  of  Bremen  after  his 
release,  although  for  a  time  subdued,  and  compelled  by  the 
victorious  Valdemar  to  retreat  to  the  monastery  of  Loccum  in 
Hanover,  was  concerned  in  every  plot  against  the  Danish  king, 
and  never  ceased  to  labour  against  the  prosperity  of  Denmark. 
Valdemar's  success  in  Germany  had  led  him  early  in  his 
reig-n  to  attempt  to  extend  his  power  to  Norway  and  Sweden, 
but  in  neither  kingdom  were  his  efforts  followed  by  any  lasting 
results,  and  after  having  taken  part  with  the  banished  prince-, 
Sverker  Karlsson,  against  Erik  Knudsson,  he  had  to  withdraw 
his  troops  from  Sweden  after  a  signal  defeat,  and  ended  by 
making  peace  with  King  Erik,  and  giving  him  his  sister  Rikissa 
in  marriage.  His  zeal  for  the  Church  and  his  love  of  adventure 
led  him  in  1219  to  set  on  foot,  with  the  pope's  special  sanction, 
a  crusade  against  the  pagans  in  Esthonia.  Armed  with  a  papal 
bull  which  gave  him  the  sovereignty  of  all  lands  which  he 
might  convert,  Valdemar  entered  upon  this  undertaking  with 
an  army  of  60,000  men  and  a  fleet  of  1,400  ships,  and  soon 
completely  overran  the  whole  of  Esthonia,  and  caused  great 


DENMARK  FROM  1202   TO  1259.  115 

numbers  of  the  people  to  be  baptized.  The  Danes,  however, 
found  powerful  rivals  in  the  Livonian  Knights  of  the  Sword,  who 
declared  that  no  other  Christians  had  the  right  of  converting 
these  pagans,  and  soon  fierce  battles  were  fought  and  much 
blood  shed  in  the  effort  made  by  each  party  to  secure  the  greater 
number  of  converts.  It  is  to  these  religious  wars  in  Esthonia 
that  the  Danes  refer  the  first  appearance  and  use  among  them 
of  the  Dannebrog,  or  national  standard,  which,  according  to  the 
legend,  suddenly  fell  down  from  heaven  while  the  primate 
Andreas  Suneson,  Absalon's  successor,  was  praying  on  a  high 
hill  with  uplifted  hands  for  victory.  It  is  not  improbable 
that  the  pope  may  have  sent  a  consecrated  banner  bearing  the 
white  cross  on  a  blood-red  field  to  King  Valdemar  as  a  token 
of  his  favour,  and  that  its  sudden  appearance,  when  the  Danes 
were  beginning  to  waver  before  the  pagan  ranks,  gave  the 
victory,  which  in  later  times  was  believed  to  have  been  gained 
through  the  primate's  prayers. 

Valdemar s  Downfall.—  When  Valdemar  returned  with  the 
victorious  Dannebrog  from  Esthonia,  he  was  at  the  very  summit 
of  his  power,  and  could  not  have  dreamed  of  the  terrible; 
vengeance  which  one  of  his  least  dreaded  enemies  would  inflict; 
upon  him.  Fear  alone  kept  his  vassals  submissive,  and  it 
was  believed  that  even  the  pope  and  the  emperor,  who  seemed 
to  favour  him,  would  rejoice  in  seeing  the  downfall  of  the 
supremacy  of  Denmark  in  Scandinavia  and  Northern  Germany. 
Some  among  the  German  princes  whose  lands  he  had  seized 
never  concealed  their  hatred  of  him,  but  others,  disguising 
their  feelings  of  anger  and  jealousy,  pretended  to  be  on 
friendly  terms  with  him,  took  favours  from  him,  and  shared  in 
his  wars  abroad  and  his  amusements  at  home,  at  the  very  time 
that  they  were  helping  in  every  secret  plot  that  was  made 
against  him.  Amongst  these  false  friends  there  was  no  one 
who  seemed  more  attached  to  King  Valdemar  than  the  Count- 
Duke  of  Schwerin,  and  no  one  who  hated  him  more  strongly. 
The  king  was  of  an  open  frank  nature,  and  although  he  had 
often  been  warned  against  the  count,  who,  both  on  account  of 
his  complexion  and  his  evil  nature,  was  known  in  his  own 
country  as  "  Black  Henry,"  he  would  not  listen  to  any  such 
warnings,  and  went  on  treating  him  like  a  faithful  friend. 

I   2 


1 16  SCAN  DIN  A  VIA  N  HIS  TOR  Y. 

Count  Henry  was,  therefore,  able  to  learn  all  that  he  wished  to 
know  of  the  king's  habits  and  mode  of  life,  and  often  gave 
secret  help  to  some  traitor  who  wanted  to  injure  Valdemar ; 
but  after  a  time,  when  he  saw  that  all  the  plots  laid  for  the 
Danish  monarch's  ruin  failed,  he  resolved  to  act  for  himself. 
The  king's  trust  in  him  soon  gave  him  the  chance  of  carrying 
out  his  evil  purposes ;  and  when  Valdemar  in  the  spring  of 
the  year  1233  invited  him  to  come  and  hunt  for  two  days  with 
him  in  the  woods  of  Lyo,  he  said  he  much  regretted  that  he 
could  not  join  him,  as  he  was  lamed  by  a  fall  and  could  not 
rise  off  his  couch.  But  instead  of  keeping  his  bed,  Count 
Henry  was  scouring  the  country  over  by  night  to  prepare  ail 
things  for  the  plot  he  had  in  hand,  which  was  no  less  than  to 
make  a  prisoner  of  his  trusting  friend  the  king.  This  was 
easier  for  him  to  accomplish  than  it  would  have  been  for  many 
others,  as  he  knew  the  island  well.  Accordingly,  when  he 
learnt  from  his  spies  that  the  king,  with  his  eldest  son,  Val- 
demar, had  landed  at  Lyo  with  only  a  few  servants,  he  pre- 
pared to  carry  out  the  design  he  had  long  had  in  view. 

At  the  close  of  a  hard  day's  hunt,  when  Valdemar  and  his 
son  were  sleeping  within  the  rude  unguarded  tent  that  had  been 
put  up  for  their  use,  and  the  few  attendants  and  huntsmen 
were  scattered  about,  lying  under  the  shelter  of  trees  and  rocks, 
Count  Henry's  men  landed  and  crept  cautiously  into  the  midst 
of  the  tired  sleepers.  Then,  entering  the  royal  tent,  they  gagged 
and  disabled  their  victims  while  they  were  yet  buried  in  pro- 
found sleep,  and  before  either  could  utter  a  sound  or  make  any 
effort  to  resist  them,  they  drew  sacks  of  wool  and  straw  over 
their  heads  and  faces,  nearly  choking  them,  and  passed  strong 
cords  round  their  bodies  to  compress  their  legs  and  arms. 
Thus  gagged  and  crippled,  the  tall  and  strong  king  and  his 
young  son  were  carried  through  the  midst  of  their  own  people 
to  the  strand,  and  laid  like  helpless  logs  in  the  bottom  of  the 
boat  which  was  waiting  for  them,  and  which,  with  muffled  oars, 
shot  quickly  across  the  narrow  strait  to  the  opposite  shore  of 
Fyen.  There  the  men  transferred  their  precious  freight  to  the 
fast-sailing  yacht  which  was  to  carrv  the  captives  to  a  (ierman 
port.  The  wind  favoured  their  passage,  and  on  the  following 
day,  almost  before  the  royal  attendants  at  Lyu  had  discovered 


DENMARK  FROM  1202   TO  1259.  117 

their  loss,  the  lately  dreaded  and  powerful  King  of  Denmark 
was  landed  in  Germany  at  a  lonely  part  of  the  coast,  £nd,  still 
gagged  and  bound,  was  placed  on  a  horse  and  tightly  secured  to 
the  saddle,  after  which  he  was  hurried  on  at  full  gallop,  with 
no  longer  stoppage  than  was  necessary  to  change  the  armed 
escort.  In  this  manner  father  and  son  were  conveyed  to  the 
castle  of  Danneberg  in  Hanover,  which  had  been  lent  for  the 
purpose  to  Count  Henry,  as  he  himself  had  no  fortress  which 
was  deemed  by  the  conspirators  strong  enough  to  receive  the 
royal  captives.  Prince  Valdemar,  who  was  the  only  son  of  King 
Valdemar's  first  queen,  Margrete  of  Bohemia,  and  who  resembled 
his  mother  both  in  her  feebleness  and  her  beauty,  was  nearly 
killed  by  the  rough  treatment  he  had  received,  and  when  his 
bonds  were  removed  on  his  arrival  at  Danneberg,  the  blood 
flowed  from  every  part  of  his  body.  But  without  paying  any 
regard  to  his  tender  youth  and  sufferings,  Count  Henry  caused 
him  and  his  royal  father  to  be  shut  up  in  a  cold,  dark  dun- 
geon, fed  on  the  poorest  and  coarsest  food,  and  left  without  a 
change  of  clothing. 

PART  II. 

VALDEMAR'S     CLOSING     YEARS. 

Valdemar's  Fate. — It  gives  us  a  very  striking  idea  of  the 
cruelty  and  lawless  state  of  those  times  when  we  think  of  poor 
King  Valdemar's  fate,  and  bear  in  mind  that  for  three  years  he 
was  left  to  endure  the  pangs  of  hunger  and  cold  and  the  bonds 
of  a  felon,  although  the  pope  and  emperor  threatened  Count 
Henry  with  all  the  penalties  that  the  church  and  empire  had 
decreed  against  those  who  raised  their  hands  against  a  prince, 
anointed  by  the  Bishops  of  Rome  and  holding  lands  undei 
the  imperial  crown.  Count  Henry  gave  ready  promises  that 
he  would  without  delay  attend  to  the  commands  which  he 
had  received  to  release  King  Valdemar  and  his  son  ;  but  lie 
evaded  the  fulfilment  of  his  promises,  knowing  that  Rome  and 
Ratisbon  were  too  far  from  Danneberg  to  give  him  real  cause 
for  alarm,  and  feeling  that  all  the  other  princes  of  Northern 


I 1 8  SC AND  IN  A  VI AN  JUS  TOR  Y. 

Germany  would  help  him  to  keep  their  common  enemy  safe  in 
prison  as  long  as  there  was  anything  to  dread  from  him.  From 
Denmark  there  was  not  much  to  be  feared  either,  for  although 
the  Danish  nation  thirsted  for  vengeance,  and  eagerly  demanded 
to  be  led  to  the  rescue  of  their  beloved  king,  there  was  no 
prince  among  them  able  or  willing  to  do  anything  to  deliver 
the  captives.  The  king's  sons  were  children  in  age,  and  all 
the  more  distant  kinsmen  of  the  royal  family  had  been  banished, 
or  were  dead  ;  and  thus  there  was  no  one  with  the  power  or 
right  to  take  the  control  of  public  affairs.  For  some  time  even 
the  people  remained  ignorant  of  the  fate  of  their  king,  but  at 
length  the  whole  sad  story  became  known,  and  then  Valde- 
mar's  nephew  Albert,  Count  of  Orlamunde,  who  had  been  on 
his  way  to  Rome  when  the  news  of  his  uncle's  capture  reached 
him,  returned  in  haste  to  Denmark,  and  collecting  an  army 
marched  into  Hanover  and  gave  battle  to  the  German  princes 
who  had  brought  their  forces  to  aid  Count  Henry  in  defending 
Danneberg.  The  poor  Danes,  who  had  not  been  well  prepared 
for  the  war,  were,  however,  very  soon  defeated  by  the  Germans, 
while  their  leader  Count  Albert  was  taken  prisoner  and  thrown 
into  the  same  dungeon  as  the  king  and  prince.  The  poor 
captives  were  now  in  a  worse  state  than  before  any  attempt  had 
been  made  for  their  rescue  ;  and  King  Valdemar,  seeing  no  other 
chance  of  escape  from  captivity,  agreed  to  the  terms  of  release 
offered  him  by  Black  Henry,  which  were  that  he  should  pay 
a  ransom  of  45,000  silver  marks  for  himself  and  his  son  Val- 
demar, and  let  his  three  younger  sons  be  brought  to  Danneberg 
and  kept  in  prison  with  Count  Albert  till  all  the  money  was 
paid.1 

On  these  terms  the  royal  captives  were  set  free,  and  they 
at  once  returned  to  Denmark,  where  the  kingdom  was  in  a 
fearful  state,  while  the  people  of  almost  all  King  Valdemar's 
former  dominions  in  Germany  had  thrown  off  their  allegiance 
to  him,  and  done  homage  to  their  own  princes.  Poor  Valde- 
mar, humbled  and  crushed  in  spirit,  found  himself  thus  deprived 

1  Count  Henry  also  required  that  the  king  should  give  him  all  the  jewels 
c:f  the  late  Queen  Ikiaiigai  ia  \vhi  -h  had  not  already  been  bestowed  on 
churches  and  monasteries,  and  send  him  100  men-at-aims,  with  horses  and 

weapons  for  their  u>e. 


DENMARK  FROM  iiv?.  TO  1259.  119 

of  all  the  power  which  had  been  won  by  his  great  valour,  and 
that  of  his  father  Valdemar  I.  and  his  brother  Knud  VI.  In  his 
grief  at  the  thought  of  dooming  his  sons  to  the  fate  from  which 
he  had  just  escaped,  he  wrote  an  earnest  letter  to  the  pope,  pray- 
ing him  to  use  the  power,  which  all  good  churchmen  of  those 
times  believed  he  had,  of  absolving  him  from  his  oath  to  let 
his  children  go  into  captivity.  The  pope  taking  pity  on  him, 
granted  his  prayer,  and  sent  one  of  his  bishops  to  Count 
Henry  of  Schwerin  to  tell  him  that  if  he  tried  to  enforce  this 
wrong  against  the  King  of  Denmark,  who  had  appealed  to  the 
Church  of  Rome,  he  should  be  deprived  of  all  the  services  of 
religion  and  be  made  to  pay  a  heavy  fine  to  the  papal  throne. 

When  first  Valdemar  returned  to  Denmark  he  was  too  much 
cast  down  and  too  full  of  sorrow  to  attempt  to  get  back  any 
of  his  old  conquests.  After  a  time,  however,  his  spirit  revived, 
and  when  in  1227  the  peasants  of  the  Ditmarshes  refused  to 
pay  the  tribute  which  the  Danish  crown  had  long  claimed  from 
them,  he  could  not  bear  the  insult,  and  putting  himself  at 
the  head  of  his  army  marched  into  their  lands.  But  fortune 
had  left  him,  as  it  now  seemed,  for  ever,  and  after  seeing  4,000 
of  his  troops  killed  by  the  rebels,  who  had  been  strongly  helped 
by  the  German  princes  of  Holstein,  and  being  wounded  in  the 
eye  by  an  arrow  which  struck  him  to  the  ground,  he  only 
escaped  a  second  capture  through  the  timely  aid  of  a  German 
knight.  This  friendly  foe  had  in  former  times  been  in  Valde- 
mar's  service,  and  when  he  saw  his  old  master  helpless  and 
bleeding,  he  lifted  him  to  his  saddle  and  carried  him  from  the 
field  of  battle  at  Bornhovecl  in  Holstein,  to  Kiel  where  his 
wounds  were  tended,  and  means  were  found  to  convey  him  to 
his  country  palace,  Vordingborg  in  Sjaelland.1 

Valdemar' s  Merits  in  Peace. — After  this  campaign  King  Valde- 
mar lived  at  peace  with  his  neighbours,  and  the  remaining 

1  According  to  the  legend  of  Bornhovecl,  Count  Adolf  of  Holstein  owed 
his  victory  over  the  Danes  to  the  Virgin,  who,  having  heard  the  vows  which 
he  made  at  the  close  of  a  long  summer-day's  fight  to  build  churches  and 
convents,  and  take  upon  himself  the  vows  of  a  monk  if  he  were  successful, 
placed  herself  before  the  sun  to  prevent  his  rays  from  dazzling  the  eyes  of 
the  Germans.  By  these  means  Count  Adolf  was  able  to  bring  his  men  in 
the  rear  of  the  Danes  and  cut  them  down  before  they  could  rally  in  their 
own  defence. 


120  SCANDINA  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 

fourteen  years  of  his  reign  were  devoted  to  the  cares  of  govern- 
ment and  to  the  preparation  of  several  codes  of  laws  for  the 
various  provinces  of  the  kingdom,  for  there  were  not  in  that 
age  any  general  laws  for  the  whole  monarchy.  In  1241  Valde- 
mar  laid  the  Jutish  code  before  the  Thing  of  Jutland,  which  met 
at  Viborg,  and  before  the  Sjrelland  Thing  at  Vordingborg.1  These 
laws,  which  had  been  revised  by  the  learned  Bishop  Gunner,  and 
were  soon  extended  to  South  Jutland  (or  Slesvig)  and  to  Fyen, 
continued  to  be  in  force  for  nearly  450  years,  when  the  Danish 
King  Christian  V.,  in  1687,  caused  new  laws  to  be  framed, 
although  even  then  ail  the  provisions  of  Valdemar's  famous 
code  were  not  wholly  set  aside.  Under  these  old  laws  the 
people  continued,  as  in  more  ancient  times,  to  decide  upon 
ordinary  cases  of  dispute  by  juries  of  which  there  were  several 
kinds,  one  consisting  of  "  eight  good  and  true  men  "  chosen 
by  the  king,  and  another  of  twelve  jurors  chosen  by  the  com- 
munity, who  were  all  bound  to  tender  an  oath  to  the  royal 
bailiff  before  the  Thing  that  they  would  determine  according  to 
"  what  was  most  right  and  most  true."  In  many  cases  where  in 
older  times  the  ordeal  by  a  red-hot  iron  had  been  in  use,  the 
oaths  of  twelve  men  were  accepted  in  proof  of  the  innocence 
of  an  accused  person.  The  royal  bailiff  of  the  Danish  Things 
had  no  judicial  power,  but  was  called  upon  to  see  the  judg- 
ments of  the  juries  carried  out,  to  keep  order,  receive  oaths, 
and  see  that  everything  was  arranged  according  to  prescribed 
custom  during  the  sitting  of  the  Thing,  which  met  in  the  open 
air  within  a  space  enclosed  by  a  ring  of  stones.  The  laws 
were  lenient,  and  most  crimes  could  be  atoned  for  by  money. 
or  other  fines  ;  compensation  to  the  sufferer  being  more 
considered  among  the  Scandinavians  than  vengeance  on  the 
offender. 

Valdemar's  Children. — Three  days  after  the  Jutish  laws  were 
read  and  approved  of  before  the  Thing  of  Vordingborg,  King 
Valdemar  died  at  the  age  of  seventy-one,  leaving  three  sons. 
Erik,  Abel,  and  Christopher,  who  all  in  turn  ruled  after  him, 
and  who  were  the  children  of  his  second  queen,  Berangaria, 

1  Ten  years  earlier  the  king  had  caused  a  Jorde  bog,  or  "  Book  of  Lands," 
to  be  drawn  up,  which  gave  an  account  of  the  value,  produce  and  owner- 
ship of  every  fasm  and  estate  in  his  kingdom. 


DENMARK  FROM  1202  TO  1259.  121 

daughter  of  King  Sancho  V.  of  Portugal.  His  eldest  son, 
Valdemar,  who  had  been  crowned  joint  king  with  himself  to 
secure  his  succession  when  he  was  only  six  years  old,  and  who 
as  we  have  seen  shared  his  captivity  at  Danneberg,  had  died  in 
1231,  at  the  early  age  of  twenty-three,  from  a  stab  in  the  foot 
received  when  hunting.  As  the  prince's  wife  and  infant  son 
had  been  carried  off  shortly  before  his  death  by  some  sudden 
disease,  or  as  the  people  thought  by  poison,  there  was  no 
descendant  left  of  Valdemar's  first  queen,  Margrete  of  Bohemia, 
whom  the  Danes,  in  their  fond  admiration  of  her  gentleness 
and  beauty,  called  Dagmar,  "  Day's  maiden." 

This  queen  long  continued  to  be  a  special  favourite  with  the 
people  of  Denmark,  amongst  whom  the  fame  of  her  virtues  was 
kept  alive  in  many  of  the  most  popular  of  their  national  rhym- 
ing verses,  known  as  Kaempeviser,  where  King  Valdemar's 
Dagmar  is  represented  as  a  fair,  fragile,  golden-haired  princess, 
gentle  and  pure  as  a  saint.  According  to  one  of  these  old 
ballads,  when  she  lay  on  her  death-bed  and  her  chaplain  urged 
her  to  confess,  she  could  recall  no  sin  but  that  of  having  decked 
herself  in  her  best  new  boddice  and  plaited  her  long  hair  with 
bright  ribbons  before  she  went  to  mass.  But  while  the  Danes 
thus  took  delight  in  trying  to  extol  the  virtues  and  beauties  of 
their  favourite,  there  was  nothing  too  bad  for  them  to  relate  of 
Valdemar's  second  queen,  the  tall,  black-haired  Berangaria, 
whose  name  they  turned  into  "  Bengjoerd,"  which  from  that 
time  forth  became  a  by-word  for  any  vile  woman.  The  super- 
stitious peasants  even  believed  that  fierce  and  loud  cries  of  rage 
and  terror  might  be  heard  from  her  tomb  in  Ringsted  Abbey 
by  those  who  passed  near  it  at  midnight,  while  at  the  same 
moment  the  softest  strains  of  heavenly  music  floated  over  the 
neighbouring  grave  of  Valdemar's  first  and  best  loved  queen, 
Dagmar. 

The  memory  of  Valdemar  II.  has  always  been  especially 
cherished  by  the  Danes,  who  regard  him  as  the  greatest  of  their 
conquerors,  and  the  most  patriotic  of  their  early  kings.  In  his 
own  age  and  in  those  immediately  succeeding  his  death,  he  was 
looked  upon  as  the  perfect  model  of  a  noble  knight  and  royal 
hero,  and  while  he  was  honoured  for  his  gallant  and  successful 
efforts  to  raise  Denmark  to  a  height  of  power  which  it  had 


122  SCANDINA  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 

never  before  reached,  he  won  the  love  and  pity  of  the  people 
on  account  of  the  miseries  and  degradation  brought  upon  him 
in  return  for  those  very  efforts  to  exalt  the  greatness  of  the 
Monarchy. 

PART  III. 

A   CENTURY   OF   TROUBLES. 

Erik,  1241-1250. — Nearly  one  hundred  years  separates  the 
beginning  of  the  first  Valdemar's  reign  in  1157  from  the  close 
of  his  son  Valdemar  Sejr's  reign  in  1241  ;  and  that  century 
marks  the  rapid  rise  and  decline  of  the  power  of  Denmark  in 
Northern  Europe.  But  whether  in  its  successes  or  its  losses,  it 
was  an  age  of  glory  of  which  the  people  have  cause  to  be 
proud.  It  was  very  different,  however,  in  regard  to  the  following 
century,  from  1241  to  1340,  which  was  filled  up  with  the  reigns 
of  Valdemar  Sejr's  three  sons  and  their  immediate  descendants, 
for  during  that  period  the  Monarchy  was  gradually  stripped  of 
all  its  domains  and  seemed  for  a  time  nearly  blotted  out, 
while  the  people  rapidly  lost  their  national  independence  and 
ceased  to  exhibit  the  daring  spirit  for  which  they  had  once  been 
noted. 

Valdemar's  excessive  love  for  his  children  had  been  the  first 
cause  of  the  terrible  disasters  and  civil  wars  which  followed 
quickly  upon  his  death  ;  for  in  order  to  make  provisions  for 
his  younger  sons  he  had  given  Slesvig  with  the  title  of  duke  to 
Abel,  and  Laaland  and  Falster  to  Christopher,  while  he  bestowed 
Bleking  and  Halland  on  his  grandson,  Nikolaus.  When,  there- 
fore, Erik  became  king,  he  found  that  little  more  than  the 
title  of  royalty  was  left  to  him,  for  his  brothers  on  the  plea  that 
their  father  had  given  them  full  sovereignty  over  their  lands, 
refused  to  do  homage  to  the  Crown.  The  disputes  which 
sprang  up  when  Erik  tried  to  enforce  his  rights  soon  ended  in 
fierce  civil  war,  and  cost  the  lives  and  properties  of  a  great 
number  of  the  Danish  and  Slesvig  peasants,  who  cared  nothing 
for  the  quarrels  of  their  princes,  and  only  wanted  to  be  left  to 
till  their  fields  and  earn  their  living  in  peace.  Erik  was  not  a 
bad  ruler,  and  whenever  his  brothers  gave  him  the  chance,  he 


DENMARK  FROM  1202   TO  1259.  123 

lived  on  friendly  terms  with  them  ;  but  he  brought  ill-will  upon 
himself  amongst  the  people  by  going  to  war  with  the  pagans  in 
Esthonia,  and  levying  a  tax  to  meet  the  expenses  which  gained 
for  him  the  nickname  of  "Plov-peng" — plough-money — be- 
cause it  was  laid  upon  the  peasants  in  accordance  with  the 
number  of  ploughs  that  each  man  used  on  his  land. 

Quarrel  between  the  Brothers. — On  his  return  from  Esthonia, 
where  the  Danish  king  reaped  some  glory  but  no  profit,  he 
wished  to  make  friends  with  his  brother  Duke  Abel,  and  there- 
fore went  to  pay  him  a  visit  in  his  castle  of  Slesvig.  The  duke 
received  the  king  very  well  and  made  a  feast  for  him,  but  he 
bore  hatred  in  his  heart,  and  when  after  dinner  they  were 
amusing  themselves  according  to  the  fashion  of  the  day,  with 
playing  chess,  he  began  to  complain  of  all  the  troubles  and  the 
losses  which  he  and  his  family  had  suffered  at  the  hands  of  the 
king's  soldiers  in  the  last  war.  Erik  begged  him  to  "  let  by- 
gones be  by-gones"  and  not  rake  up  old  grievances,  but  this 
only  seemed  to  make  him  more  angry,  and  he  cried  out  "  No  ! 
King  Erik,  I  am  not  going  to  '  let  bygones  be  bygones ! '  I 
cannot  forget  that  my  two  daughters  had  to  run  for  their  lives 
from  your  soldiers  when  they  laid  siege  to  this  castle,  and  that 
the  poor  children,  barefooted  and  bareheaded,  had  to  hurry  out 
of  my  gates  and  take  shelter  in  a  mean  burgher's  house  ! " 

"  I  am  truly  grieved,  dear  brother,"  said  the  king  good- 
naturedly  ;  "  arid  though  I  am  not,  God  knows,  as  rich  as  I 
could  wish  to  be,  I  have  surely  enough  left  in  my  treasury  to 
buy  shoes  and  hoods  for  my  pretty  nieces." 

This  speech  did  not  appease  Duke  Abel,  and  rushing  forth 
into  the  outer  hall,  he  called  to  him  two  knights,  Lave  Gud- 
mundsen  and  Tyge  Post,  who  had  lived  in  his  service  since 
they  had  been  outlawed  by  the  king.  Reminding  them  of  all 
the  wrongs  that  King  Erik  had  done  them,  he  bade  them  go 
into  the  inner  chamber  and  do  with  him  what  they  liked,  so 
that  they  took  care  no  one  should  see  him  again,  living  or 
dead.  The  knights  waited  for  no  further  orders,  and  arming 
themselves,  they  hastened  to  the  hall  where  the  king  had  thrown 
himself  on  a  couch  to  rest  a  while  till  his  brother  returned,  whose 
anger  had  given  him  no  concern,  as  he  knew  of  old  that  his 
temper  was  hasty.  Here  they  fell  upon  him  unawares,  and 


i 24  SC AND  IN  A  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 

having  bound  and  gagged  him,  put  him  into  a  boat,  and  rowing 
with  him  out  upon  the  river  Slie,  which  flowed  close  to  the 
castle  walls,  they  cut  off  his  head  and  threw  his  body,  round 
which  they  had  passed  heavy  chains,  into  the  middle  of  the 
stream. 

Abel,  1250-1252. — When  Abel  learnt  how  his  brother  had 
met  his  death  by  the  hands  of  the  knights,  he  sent  off  messen- 
gers to  the  Danish  Islands  to  announce  that  Knk  \vas  dead, 
and  to  offer  himself  to  the  people  as  their  king,  I  hit  as  he 
found  that  they  accused  him  of  being  his  brother's  murderer, 
and  would  not  believe  his  statement  that  King  Erik  had  been 
drowned  while  fishing  in  the  river,  by  leaning  too  far  over  the 
side  of  the  boat  and  losing  his  balance,  he  took  a  solemn  oath 
before  the  great  Thing  that  he  was  guiltless,  and  brought  twenty- 
four  nobles  to  swear  to  the  truth  of  his  words.  This  practice  of 
swearing  for  another  man  was  an  ancient  northern  custom,  sel- 
dom made  use  of  in  those  days.  But  although  it  always  had 
been  looked  upon  as  a  very  solemn  way  of  proving  the  truth,  it 
did  not  now  deceive  the  nation  ;  yet,  for  the  sake  of  the  memory 
of  their  old  king,  Valdemar  Sejr,  the  Danes  would  not  withhold 
the  crown  from  his  eldest  living  son,  although  they  knew  that 
Abel  was  guilty  of  his  brother's  death,  and  looked  upon  him 
with  distrust  and  fear.  These  events  took  place  in  the  year 
1250,  but  two  years  later,  when  the  people  had  begun  to  find 
peace  under  King  Abel  and  to  benefit  by  his  brave  defence 
of  the  country  against  the  attacks  of  pirates,  he  was  murdered 
on  his  retreat  from  an  unsucces.sful  campaign  against  the  unruly 
Ditmarshers.  Abel  owed  his  death  to  the  vengeance  of  a  wheel- 
wright, known  in  the  marshes  as  Hans  of  Pelvorm,  whom  he  had 
wronged  on  a  former  occasion,  and  who,  having  sworn  to  take 
the  king's  life,  watched  his  opportunity,  and  when  Abel  was 
riding  along  a  narrow  road,  by  the  urreat  Milderdam,  sprang 
forward  and  struck  him  dead  with  a  blow  of  his  sledge-hammer. 
Then  lifting  the  body  of  the  king  off  his  horse,  while  the  few 
royal  attendants  who  had  witnessed  the  deed  fled  in  terror,  he 
threw  it  into  the  bog  near  by,  where  it  rapidly  sank  below  the 
surface  of  the  deep  turf. 

I'.rik's  boily  rccorercil.  —  T'y  a  strange  accident,  about  the  very 
time  that  King  Abet  was  murdered  and  his  dead  body  left 


DENMARK  FROM  1202  TO  1259.  125 

without  burial  in  the  Frisian  marshes,  the  headless  trunk  of  his 
slain  brother,  King  Erik,  was  raised  to  the  surface  of  the  waters 
by  the  shifting  of  the  under  currents  of  the  Slie,  and  the  manner 
of  his  death  was  thus  made  known.  The  monks  of  Slesvig 
abbey  had  been  the  first  to  discover  the  body,  and  recognizing 
it  to  be  that  of  the  late  king,  they  took  the  remains,  and  laid 
them  in  a  grave  near  the  spot  on  which  they  had  been  found. 
Soon  a  report  was  spread  abroad  that  miracles  were  being  done 
and  marvellous  cures  wrought  at  King  Erik's  grave,  and  for  a  long 
time  the  abbey  derived  large  revenues  from  the  money  paid  by 
pilgrims  who  flocked  to  the  spot.  But  although  Erik  was 
looked  upon  as  a  saint  and  a  martyr,  he  was  never  canonized. 

Abel's  short  reign  is  worthy  of  special  note  for  being  the  first 
in  which  the  burgher  classes  were  permitted  as  a  distinct  body 
in  the  state  to  send  representatives  to  the  "  Danehof,"  or  yearly 
national  assembly.  They  were  also  allowed  to  have  their  own 
courts  of  justice  in  the  towns,  and  to  settle  their  affairs  in  civic 
or  town-councils,  presided  over  by  a  mayor,  or  chief  burgher- 
master,  although  every  town  had  its  own  royal  bailiff  who 
in  the  king's  name  enforced  obedience  to  the  laws  of  the  country, 
and  the  payment  of  all  proper  taxes  to  the  crown.  After  a  time 
the  town-councils  in  all  the  larger  cities  of  the  kingdom  were 
left  free  to  frame  their  own  codes  of  laws,  but  about  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  years  later,  under  Queen  Margaret,  these  civic  by- 
laws were  almost  all  done  away  with  and  replaced  by  one 
general  body  of  laws,  binding  on  town  and  country  alike. 

King  Abel,  at  his  death  in  1252,  left  several  sons,  but  as  they 
were  young,  and  his  brother  Duke  Christopher  was  a  man  in 
the  prime  of  life,  the  Danes  chose  him  for  their  king.  It  was 
not  uncommon  in  the  Middle  Ages  for  young  heirs  to  be  set 
aside  in  that  manner,  in  favour  of  some  older  kinsman.  The 
crown  of  Denmark  was,  moreover,  then  and  for  a  long  time  after- 
wards elective  and  not  hereditary,  that  is  to  say,  the  nobles, 
clergy  and  burghers  had  the  right  of  deciding  which  one  of  the 
late  king's  heirs  should  succeed  him,  although  they  generally 
chose  the  eldest  son  or  nearest  heir.  So  in  this  case  the  electors 
only  used  their  just  rights,  and  one  reason  that  had  great  weight 
with  them  in  passing  over  Abel's  sons  was  that  they  were  under 
the  care  of  their  mother's  brothers,  the  Counts  of  Holstein, 


126  SCANDINA  VI AN  ITJSTOR  Y. 

whom  the  Danes  looked  upon  as  enemies ;  and  it  must  be 
owned  that  those  princes  never  lost  a  chance  of  showing  their 
ill-will  to  the  people  of  Denmark. 

Dai tm  of  Slcsvig-Holstein  Wars. — The  first  act  of  the  Holstein 
princes  after  Christopher  was  made  king  was  to  insist  that  he 
should  confirm  to  his  and  their  young  nephews  all  the  rights 
over  the  duchy  of  Slesvig,  which  Abel  had  claimed  in  Erik's 
lifetime  as  due  to  him  in  accordance  with  the  intentions  of 
their  father,  the  late  king,  Valdemar  Sejr.  When  Christopher 
refused,  the  Holsteiners  made  war  on  Denmark,  and  after  much 
fighting  King  Abel's  son,  Valdemar  of  Slesvig,  was  allowed  to 
hold  the  duchy,  but  on  what  terms  both  parties  purposely  left 
to  be  settled  at  some  other  time.  And  thus  the  seeds  of  dis- 
pute about  that  richest  of  all  the  Danish  crown  lands  found 
a  good  soil,  in  which  to  multiply  into  an  abundant  harvest  of 
troubles  for  future  generations. 

Differences  between  Church  and  State. — This  was  the  first 
reign  in  which  the  king  and  prelates  had  not  been  on  friendly 
terms,  and  Christopher  soon  fell  into  serious  disputes  with  his 
primate,  Jakob  Erlandsen,  a  man  of  great  learning,  who  had 
been  a  fellow  student  in  Rome  of  the  pope,  Innocent  IV.,  and 
was  so  devoted  to  the  Romish  Church  that  he  considered  his 
duty  as  a  subject  much  less  binding  on  his  conscience  than  his 
obligations  as  one  of  the  clergy.  Christopher,  finding  that  the 
Danish  bishops  were  gaining  more  power  and  greater  riches  than 
the  highest  nobles  of  the  land,  threatened  to  call  them  to  account 
for  their  exercise  of  seignorial  rights,  and  their  defiance  of  the 
laws,  on  which  Erlandsen  declared  that  unless  the  king  ceased 
his  attempts  to  curtail  the  privileges  of  the  clergy,  the  kingdom 
should  be  laid  under  an  interdict.  This  so  enraged  Christopher 
that  he  caused  the  primate  to  be  seized  in  his  own  palace 
and  carried,  chained  like  a  common  felon,  to  one  of  the  royai 
castles. 

This  act,  as  might  have  been  expected,  brought  the  anger  of 
Rome  on  the  kingdom  of  Denmark,  which  was  laid  under  an 
interdict,  and  a  sentence  of  excommunication  passed  on  the 
king  and  all  who  had  taken  part  in  the  seizure  and  ill-treatment 
of  the  primate.  The  people,  however,  at  first,  paid  little  heed 
to  these  acts,  and  as  the  clergy  in  Jutland  and  some  of  the 


DENMARK  FROM  1202  TO  1259.  127 

islands  refused  obedience  to  the  papal  decrees,  the  services  of 
the  Church  were  still  carried  on  in  many  parts  of  the  kingdom. 
At  the  moment,  however,  when  Christopher  was  about  to  seize 
upon  some  of  the  crown  lands  held  by  the  bishops,  his  sudden 
death  while  he  was  receiving  the  communion  in  the  cathedral 
of  Ribe,  from  the  hands  of  the  abbot,  Arnfast,  plunged  Denmark 
into  greater  troubles  than  any  it  had  yet  known.  The  suspicions 
generally  current  amongst  the  people  that  the  king  had  died 
from  the  effects  of  a  poisoned  wafer  given  him  by  Arnfast 
became  still  stronger  when  shortly  afterwards  the  abbot,  who 
was  known  to  be  a  secret  friend  of  Erlandsen,  was  raised  to 
the  rank  of  Bishop  of  Aarhus. 


CHAPTER  X. 

DENMARK  FROM     I25Q    TO     1387. 

Erik  Clipping  ;  his  minority  ;  the  Queen-Regent  ;  his  quarrels  with  Slcsvig 
and  with  the  Church  ;  settlement  of  disputes  ;  his  evil  habits  ;  civil  war  ; 
conspiracy  ;  his  murder  in  a  barn  ;  fifty-six  conspirators — his  son  Erik 
Menved's  reign  a  repetition  of  his  own  —The  Queen-Mother — War — 
anarchy — Disputes  with  clergy — Rebels  swarm  over  the  country — The 
young  King's  mode  of  education,  love  of  war  and  tournaments,  want  of 
money  ;  he  pawns  crown  lands — Hansers  secure  fisheries  and  forbid 
royal  servants  to  fish — Treatment  of  Primate  Grand — Consequences  of 
the  outrage — Interdict — Conduct  of  people — Erik's  domestic  troubles 
in  losing  fourteen  children ;  his  advice  to  his  nobles  ;  his  death— 
Christopher  II. — Magna  Charta  of  Danish  barons— Perfidy  of  the  King 
— Civil  wars — Struggles — Geert  of  Holstein  rules  and  sets  up  a  puppet- 
King — Geert's  murder ;  revenge  of  his  sons  on  Niels  Ebbeson— -Valde- 
mar  returns  from  Germany  and  is  chosen  King  ;  his  brother  Otto's  fate 
— Valdemar's  marriage  ;  his  conduct  ;  his  recovery  of  crown  lands  ; 
his  taking  of  \Visby;  his  contempt  for  Hansers — Wars  with  Germany  ; 
seizes  on  Elizabeth  of  Holstein  ;  marries  his  daughter  Margaret  to  the 
heir  of  Sweden — Enemies  close  round  Valdemar  ;  his  subjects  do  noi 
help  him  ;  his  defeat,  flight  and  humiliation— Hansers'  arrogance  — 
Valdemar's  merits;  people's  hatred  of  him — "Valdemar  the  Bad"; 
his  death— "  Atterdag,"  its  meaning;  his  family;  his  heirs — Olaf— 
Queen  Margaret's  regency — Ilakon's  death — Olafs  death — Margaret's 
mistaken  policy. 

PART  I. 
AN     AGE  OF     TROUBLES. 

F.rik  (7////> 'V/-,  1259-12X6. — Ox  the  death  of  Christopher 
I.,  the  last  of  Yaldemar  Sejr's  sons,  there  seemed  sonic  chance 
that  the  crown  of  Denmark  \vmild  pass  a\vav  from  Ins 
descendants,  for  the  clergy,  \vhcj  enjoyed  excessive  power  in 


DENMARK  FROM  1259  TO  1387.  129 

the  state  resolved  to  use  their  influence  in  preventing  the  son 
of  the  former  king  from  being  chosen  as  his  successor.  But 
the  nobles,  together  with  the  burgher-classes  who  had  begun  to 
make  their  power  felt,  refused  to  set  aside  the  old  dynasty, 
and  in  spite  of  the  opposition  of  the  prelates  chose  the  young 
prince  Erik,  son  of  Christopher  I.,  to  be  king. 

Erik,  surnamed  "  Clipping,"  or  the  Blinker,  was  only  ten  years 
of  age  when  he  was  crowned  King  of  Denmark,  and  his 
mother,  the  widowed  Queen  Margaret  of  Pomerania,  therefore 
ruled  in  his  name  during  his  childhood.  Her  first  act  was  to 
release  the  primate  Erlandsen,  whose  captivity  had  brought 
such  troubles  on  the  land  during  the  former  reign,  but  he 
refused  to  be  reconciled  with  the  royal  family,  and  availed 
himself  of  his  newly-gained  freedom  to  hasten  to  Rome  in  order 
that  he  might  appeal  to  the  papal  chair.  In  the  meanwhile 
Denmark  continued  to  be  disturbed  by  a  civil  war,  excited  by 
the  late  King  Abel's  grandson,  Duke  Erik  of  Slesvig,  who  on 
one  occasion  defeated  the  royal  troops  and  seized  on  the 
persons  of  the  Queen  Regent  and  the  young  king,  the  latter  of 
whom  was  kept  a  prisoner  in  Nordborg  Castle  by  his  daring 
vassal  for  three  years,  and  only  released  on  his  pledging  him- 
self to  acknowledge  the  hereditary  rights  of  the  descendants 
of  King  Abel  to  the  duchy  of  Slesvig.  The  differences  between 
the  king  and  primate  were  not  finally  settled  till  1273,  when 
Erik  Clipping  was  forced  to  pay  a  fine  of  15,000  marks  silver 
to  the  archbishop  to  atone  for  the  wrongs  inflicted  upon  him 
by  King  Christopher,  on  which  the  interdict  was  removed  from 
the  kingdom,  after  having  been  enforced  in  name  if  not  in 
fact  for  fourteen  years. 

The  king  had  tried  to  evade  the  fulfilment  of  his  promises 
to  Duke  Erik  as  scon  as  he  found  himself  safe  out  of  his 
power,  but  the  question  of  the  terms  on  which  the  duchy 
of  Slesvig  was  held  was  at  last  laid  before  the  imperial 
court  at  Ratisbon,  and  that  too  was  decided  against  Den- 
mark. In  consequence  of  the  decision  of  the  Emperor  and 
the  commands  of  the  Pope,  young  Valdemar,  the  heir  of 
Duke  Erik,  was  in  1283  formally  put  in  possession  of  the 
lands  claimed  for  him,  but  which  the  Danes  regarded  as  part 
of  the  crown  domains,  not  to  be  separated  from  the  monarchy 

K 


1 30  SCAN  DIN  A  VI AN  HIS  TOR  Y. 

except  as  feudal  fiefs  to  be  held  by  a  vassal  of  the  Danish 
King. 

After  these  questions  were  settled  and  all  excuse  for  war  waa 
at  an  end,  Erik  might  have  given  his  kingdom  some  rest,  and 
tried  to  repair  the  evils  of  past  years.  But  he  was  a  weak, 
vicious  man,  so  fond  of  pleasure  and  of  indulging  his  own  evil 
passions,  that  he  wasted  on  himself  the  money  that  ought  to 
have  been  spent  for  the  good  of  the  country,  and  raised  up  a 
band  of  formidable  enemies.  At  length,  after  having  done 
many  private  wrongs  to  men  who  had  served  him  well  in  the 
times  of  his  troubles,  a  plot  was  formed  against  him  by  some  of 
the  highest  nobles  of  the  land.  After  several  attempts  against 
his  life  which  failed,  the  conspirators  carried  out  their  purpose 
of  slaying  him,  in  the  autumn  of  1286,  when  fifty-six  of  their 
number,  disguising  themselves  as  monks,  fell  upon  him  in  his 
sleep  and  slew  him  in  a  barn  where  lie  was  resting  after  a 
long  day's  hunt.  The  king  who  had  always  feared  violence  had 
caused  the  doors  to  be  barred  and  guarded  before  he  lay  down, 
but  by  the  treachery  of  his  page,  or  chamberlain,  Rane  Jonsen, 
the  conspirators  were  admitted,  when,  rushing  upon  their  un- 
armed king  they  all  struck  at  him  with  their  swords,  and  after 
completing  their  work  by  leaving  fifty-six  wounds  on  the  body, 
hurried  away,  and  dispersed  before  Erik's  friends  could  detect 
or  secure  them. 


PART    II. 

DECLINE     OF    THE     ROYAL     POWER. 

Erik  Mcnved,  1286-1319. — The  early  part  of  the  reign  of 
the  young  king  Erik  Menved,  "With  a  l!ut."  1  must  have  seemed 
to  those  who  could  remember  his  father  Erik  Clipping's  child- 
hood as  a  coming  back  of  that  older  time  of  trouble.  There 
was  again  a  boy-king  under  the  care  of  a  foreign  mother  and 
Queen  Regent,  who  could  not  speak  the  language  of  the 

1  lie  was  so  called,  it  is  said,  because  l:e  never  made  up  his  mind  to 
anything. 


DENMARK  FROM  1259  TO  1387.  131 

country  which  she  was  called  upon  to  rule.  There  was  again 
the  same  want  of  loyalty  among  the  nobles  and  richer  clergy, 
who  thought  the  times  favourable  to  their  own  increase  of 
power ;  and  there  were  rebels  swarming  over  the  country  and 
keeping  up  ill-will  against  the  royal  family.  A  few  brave 
knights  and  nobles,  headed  by  the  learned  chancellor  Mar-tinus 
de  Dacia,  whose  fame  had  spread  to  every  part  of  Europe, 
proved  themselves  true  friends  to  their  young  king  and  his 
mother,  and  it  was  chiefly  by  their  help  that  Queen  Agnes  of 
Brandenburg  was  able  to  keep  up  any  show  of  power.  She 
was  bent  upon  punishing  the  murderers  of  her  husband,  but  it 
was  not  very  easy  to  lay  hands  upon  them,  for  the  king  of 
Sweden,  although  he  had  married  a  sister  of  Erik  Clipping, 
gave  them  his  support  and  helped  them  to  get  ships  and  men, 
so  that  they  were  able  to  do  great  damage  to  the  lands  near 
the  Danish  shores.  Each  of  the  leaders  of  the  rebel  murderers 
of  the  late  king  seized  upon  some  strong  point,  and  then  kept 
a  part  of  the  coast  for  his  own  special  pillage-ground,  and 
many  years  passed  before  the  kingdom  was  relieved  from 
the  attacks  of  these  traitors.  But  when  their  fiercest  chiefs, 
the  Marshal  Stig  and  Rane  Jonsen,  were  no  longer  at  the 
head  of  this  pirate-like  war — the  former  having  died  in  1293, 
and  the  latter  having  been  taken  and  broken  on  the  wheel  in 
the  same  year — this  frightful  scourge  ceased. 

The  young  king  and  his  brother,  Prince  Christopher,  were  in 
the  meanwhile  being  very  carefully  trained  in  all  knightly- 
exercises  under  the  Marshal,  or  Drost  Peeler,  and  they  became 
brave  and  accomplished  princes  ;  but  unfortunately  Erik  when 
he  was  a  boy  had  learnt  to  take  such  great  delight  in  trying  his 
skill  in  all  kinds  of  mimic  warfare,  that  when  he  grew  to  be  a 
man  he  was  not  happy  till  he  could  make  war  in  earnest.  So 
in  spite  of  all  the  distress  and  want  in  Denmark  he  entered 
upon  costly  and  useless  campaigns  against  the  Christian,  as 
well  as  the  pagan  lands  of  eastern  Germany.  In  later  years 
when  his  poor  subjects  were  no  longer  able  to  supply  money 
for  these  foolish  schemes,  or  for  the  splendid  tournaments 
which  he  held  in  honour  of  his  empty  success  in  Pomerania 
and  Esthonia,  he  pawned  or  sold  nearly  all  the  crown-lands,  till 
at  last  there  was  scarcely  any  dominion  remaining  to  the 


132  SCANDINA  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 


monarchy.  Amongst  other  districts  Erik  had  sold  to  the 
German  Hanse  traders  a  long  line  of  coast  land  with  all  the 
herring  fisheries  in  the  Danish  seas. 

By  these  and  other  acts  of  folly  and  wastefulness,  this  king 
of  Denmark  had  sunk  so  low  that  at  one  time  the  Hansers 
had  power  enough  to  forbid  the  servants  of  his  household 
from  fishing  more  than  one  day  in  the  year  off  the  Danish 
coast  of  Skaania;  while  they  kept  armed  boats  to  enforce  their 
orders  that  the  Danes  should  leave  the  fishing  ground  as  soon 
as  they  had  salted  one  day's  haul  of  herrings  for  the  royal 
kitchen.  Notwithstanding  these  and  many  other  proofs  of  the 
abject  condition  of  the  sovereignty  at  this  period,  Erik  plunged 
his  kingdom  into  fresh  troubles  by  his  quarrels  with  Johan 
Grand,  the  successor  of  the  primate  Jakob  Erlandsen.  The 
young  king  and  his  mother,  who  had  good  reason  for  believing 
that  Grand,  together  with  the  Duke  Valdemar  of  Slesvig,  had 
given  their  support  to  the  murderers  of  Erik  Clipping,  even  if 
they  had  not  been  present  when  he  was  slain,  felt  that  the 
raising  of  this  man  to  the  primacy  was  an  insult  to  themselves, 
more  especially  as  they  had  informed  the  Danish  clergy  generally 
of  the  grounds  of  their  objections  to  his  being  chosen  to 
be  Archbishop  of  Lund.  Grand  was  nevertheless  elected,  and 
for  a  time  he  and  the  king  avoided  giving  open  proof  of 
their  mutual  ill-will,  but  soon  the  primate's  arrogance  and  the 
young  king's  hastiness  of  temper  led  to  a  rupture  between 
them.  Then  Erik,  losing  patience,  allowed  his  brother  Prince 
Christopher  to  arrest  the  primate  as  a  traitor,  and  to  shut  him 
up  in  the  castle  of  Soborg,  where  he  was  kept  for  eight  months 
in  close  confinement.  The  harshness  and  even  inhumanity 
with  which  young  Prince  Christopher  had  carried  out  his 
brother's  orders  made  this  outrage  the  more  unpardonable  in 
the  eyes  of  the  pope,  Boniface  VIII.,  who,  when  he  heard  of 
the  indignity  that  had  been  indicted  on  the  primate,  excom- 
municated the  royal  brothers  and  laid  the  Danish  kingdom 
under  an  interdict.  In  the  meanwhile  Grand,  whose  health 
never  recovered  from  the  bodily  injuries  which  he  had  received 
in  having  been  carried  in  a  storm  of  rain  and  hail  in  an  open 
boat  by  night  to  his  prison,  escaped  from  Soborg  by  the  help 
of  some  of  his  monks  and  made  his  way  to  Ro:ne,  where  he 


DENMARK  FROM  1259   TO  1387.  133 


did  his  utmost  to  keep  the  Danish  king  out  of  favour  with 
the  Church  and  the  pope. 

Denmark  tmder  an  Interdict — As  in  former  times  the  interdict 
could  only  be  imperfectly  enforced  in  Denmark  where  the 
people  took  the  part  of  their  king,  and  braved  the  authority  of 
the  Court  of  Rome.  They  even  refused  to  suffer  the  penances 
enjoined  upon  them,  and  when  the  clergy  tried  to  close  the 
doors  of  the  churches,  the  peasants  rushed  to  arms  and  forced 
their  priests  at  the  peril  of  their  lives  to  perform  all  the  services 
of  religion  for  them.  But  although  this  resolute  conduct  on 
the  part  of  the  Danes  took  away  some  of  the  evil  effects  of 
the  interdict,  it  did  not  save  the  king  from  the  consequences  of 
his  unjust  act  towards  the  archbishop.  At  the  end  of  five 
years  Erik  was  forced  to  write  a  humble  letter  to  the  pope 
praying  for  pardon,  and  to  pay  a  fine  of  10,000  silver  marks 
to  the  papal  treasury ;  and  thus  the  Church  gained  another 
victory  at  the  expense  of  the  nation. 

King  Erik  was  as  unhappy  in  his  family  concerns  as  he  was 
in  public  affairs,  for  he  had  the  misfortune  to  lose  all  his  four- 
teen children  in  their  infancy.  His  Queen  Ingeborg  of 
Sweden  was  so  deeply  distressed  at  the  death  of  her  youngest 
son,  who  was  killed  by  falling  off  her  lap  while  she  was  driving 
with  him  in  an  open  carriage,  that  she  went  into  a  convent 
in  1317,  and  died  there  two  years  later  and  only  a  few  months 
before  the  king.  When  Erik  found  himself  left  childless  he  felt 
great  concern  in  regard  to  the  choice  of  his  successor,  and  know- 
ing the  ambitious  and  deceitful  character  of  his  only  brother 
Duke  Christopher,  he  called  together  the  nobles  and  prelates  of 
Denmark,  and  telling  them  that  he  feared  his  own  life  was  near 
its  close,  he  begged  them  to  take  counsel  together,  and  settle 
upon  some  prince  for  their  future  king  who  would  prove  a  just 
ruler.  At  that  time,  however,  there  was  no  other  heir  of  the 
royal  house  whom  the  people  cared  to  choose,  and  therefore  on 
the  death  of  Erik  Menved  in  1319,  the  Council  of  State  pro- 
claimed Duke  Christopher  king  ;  but  as  they  had  no  better 
opinion  of  him  than  his  brother  had  expressed,  and  saw  a 
good  chance  of  increasing  their  own  power,  they  drew  up  a 
very  hard  agreement  which  they  made  him  sign  before  they 
would  permit  him  to  be  crowned. 


134  SCANDINAVIAN  HISTORY. 

Christopher  II.,  1319 — 1332. — In  this  charter,  which  may  be 
called  the  Magna  Cliarta  of  the  Danish  barons,  the  nobles  and 
prelates  took  such  good  care  of  their  own  interests  thaj  little  or 
no  power  was  left  to  the  king,  and  as  it  freed  them  from  all 
taxes,  the  crown  was  deprived  of  the  revenues  that  it  had 
formerly  had  under  its  command.  Amongst  other  points,  the 
nobles  had  claimed  the  right  of  refusing  to  carry  arms  for  their 
king  beyond  the  limits  of  their  own  country,  while  he  had  to 
bind  himself  that  he  would  pay  their  ransom  if  they  were 
taken  captive  in  war.  Christopher  made  no  objections  to  the 
hard  terms  imposed  upon  him,  because  he  had  resolved  from  the 
first  that  he  would  disregard  them  as  soon  as  he  was  able  to 
bid  defiance  to  his  council ;  but  as  he  had  neither  power 
nor  money,  he  found  this  less  easy  than  he  had  expected,  yet 
he  nevertheless  plunged  his  kingdom  into  civil  wars  which 
brought  misery  to  both  parties. 

After  a  time  of  great  trouble,  the  end  of  the  long  strife 
between  him  and  his  unruly  nobles  was  that  in  1325  they 
called  in  a  strong  neighbour,  Count  Gerhard  of  Holstein,  to 
help  them.  This  prince,  known  in  Denmark  as  ''  Black  Geert," 
routed  the  king's  troops  and  took  his  eldest  son  Prince  Erik 
captive,  and  instead  of  letting  Christopher  have  a  share  in  the 
guardianship  of  young  Valdemar  of  Slesvig,  which  the  Danish 
king  had  claimed  as  a  right,  he  drove  the  king  himself  out  of 
his  kingdom,  and  after  persuading  the  Danes  to  declare  the 
throne  vacant,  he  set  his  nephew,  this  boy  Duke  Valdemar,  in 
his  place.1  For  fourteen  years  Black  Geert  was  the  real  king 
of  Denmark,  of  whose  lands  and  people  he  disposed  pretty 
much  as  he  liked,  while  Christopher  and  his  sons,  although 
sometimes  able  to  make  head  for  a  time  against  their  strong 
foes,  were  seldom  left  very  long  in  the  enjoyment  of  power. 

Christopher's  death  in  1332  did  not  alter  things  very  much, 
and  for  eight  years  longer  the  Danes  were  at  the  mercy  of  the 
Counts  of  Holstein,  which  was  the  more  galling  to  them  as 
they  had  always  regarded  those  princes  as  of  far  lower  degree 
than  their  old  rulers.  In  the  year  1340,  Denmark  was  freed 
from  her  stern  master  by  the  daring  act  of  a  Jutlander  of  rank, 

1  Valdemar  of  Slesvig,  crowned  Kin<{  of  Denmark  as  Valdemar  III.,  was 
the  cousin  of  King  Christopher  11. 


DENMARK  FROM  1259  TO  1387.  135 

called  Niels  Ebbeson,  who  with  sixty-three  serving  men  forced 
his  way  into  the  castle  of  Randers,  and  slew  Count  Geert  in 
the  midst  of  his  own  people  and  with  his  army  of  newly  levied 
Germans  lying  encamped  around  him. 

The  effect  of  this  daring  deed  was  to  scatter  the  great  Hoi- 
stein  army,  which  seemed  at  once  to  melt  away  and  disappear 
on  the  death  of  its  leader.  The  Jutlanders  rose  in  a  body, 
and  placing  themselves  under  the  command  of  Niels  Ebbeson, 
stormed  the  German  forts  and  after  carrying  everything  before 
them,  drove  the  Holsteiners  back  to  their  own  territory.  Soon 
however  new  armies  led  on  by  Geert's  son  Henry,  known 
from  his  unflinching  courage  as  the  "  Iron  Count,"  appeared  in 
Jutland,  and  defeated  Niels  Ebbeson  in  a  fierce  battle  at  Skan- 
dersborg,  where  the  latter  fell,  together  with  two  of  his  own  sons 
and  a  large  number  of  his  men.  The  Iron  Count  did  not  care 
to  continue  the  war  after  he  had  thus  taken  vengeance  on  his 
father's  murderer,  and  withdrawing  his  troops  after  his  victory  at 
Skandersborg,  he  left  his  cousin  Valdemar  of  Slesvig  and  the 
Danish  princes  to  decide  as  they  liked  upon  the  fate  of  Denmark. 
King  Christopher  had  died  some  years  before  these  events,  so 
thoroughly  neglected  by  his  own  subjects  and  despised  by  his 
enemies,  that  on  one  occasion,  when  two  nobles,  thinking  to  find 
favour  with  the  Holstein  princes,  attacked  the  house  in  Saxkjo- 
bing  in  which  the  fugitive  monarch  had  found  refuge,  and 
brought  him  to  Count  Johan  of  Holstein,  that  prince  would  not 
be  troubled  with  him,  and  left  him  free  to  go  where  he  liked. 
Soon  after  this  humiliation,  Christopher  II.  ended  his  useless 
and  unhappy  life  in  neglect  at  Nykjobing,  and  thus  in  1332 
Denmark  was  freed  from  one  of  the  worst  and  most  con- 
temptible kings  who  ever  occupied  the  throne.  From  the 
moment  Christopher  obtained  the  crown  till  the  murder  of 
Geert  in  1340,  the  country  had  been  torn  by  civil  war, 
brought  on  either  by  the  treachery  of  the  king,  or  the  ambition 
of  the  Holstein  prince,  and  while  a  few  of  the  nobles  made 
themselves  rich  at  the  expense  of  the  crown,  many  old  families 
were  reduced  to  beggary,  trade  was  destroyed,  and  the  peasants 
were  so  crushed  that  they  fell  into  a  state  that  was  little  better 
than  slavery 


136  SCANDINA  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 

PART  III. 
THE    CREDIT    OF    DENMARK     REVIVES. 

Valdemar  Atterdag,  1340-1375. — The  Danes  in  their  joy  at 
the  death  of  Geert  of  Holstein  forgot  all  the  evils  which  they  had 
suffered  under  their  own  king  before  the  Holsteiners  drove  him 
out  of  the  country,  and  determined  to  restore  the  old  dynasty. 
At  Christopher's  death  in  1332  he  left  only  two  sons,  the  eldest, 
Prince  Erik,  having  died  some  years  before  in  a  useless  attempt 
to  recover  the  crown  for  him.  Otto,  the  second  son,  was  a 
prisoner  in  Holstein,  while  the  youngest,  Valdemar,  was  living 
in  peace  at  the  court  of  the  Emperor  Louis  of  Bavaria,  who  had 
given  him  a  kind  reception,  when  after  the  defeat  of  his  father 
and  brothers  he  had  fled  to  Germany.  This  young  prince  who 
had  been  spending  his  time  in  jousting  and  other  amusements 
while  his  native  country  was  being  brought  to  ruin  by  its  enemies, 
was  the  one  on  whom  the  choice  of  the  Danes  fell  when  by  the 
murder  of  Count  Geert  they  found  themselves  free  to  elect  a 
king.  Valdemar  of  Slesvigwas  still  regarded  by  the  Holsteiners 
and  other  Germans  as  the  rightful  monarch  of  Denmark,  but 
the  Danish  nobles  looked  upon  him  simply  as  the  puppet  king 
of  his  uncle  Geert,  and,  after  the  Count's  death,  they  paid  no 
attention  to  their  Slesvig  sovereign.  Valdemar  himself  had  no 
wish  to  retain  the  crown,  and  on  the  arrival  of  the  young  Danish 
Prince  Valdemar  from  Germany  he  entered  into  a  friendly 
compact  with  him,  and  not  only  refused  to  oppose  his  election 
to  the  throne,  but  gave  him  his  sister  Hedwig  in  marriage, 
with  a  dowry  of  24,000  silver  marks.  He  then  retired  to  his 
own  Slesvig  territories,  well  pleased  as  it  would  appear  to  be 
free  of  the  trouble  of  ruling  such  an  unhappy  and  poor  kingdom 
as  Denmark.  Nothing  now  stood  in  the  way  of  Valdemars 
success,  and  after  he  had  forced  his  brother  Otto  to  renounce 
all  claim  to  the  throne  and  to  enter  the  Monastic  Order  of  the 
German  Knights  as  the  price  of  his  liberty,  he  felt  he  had  no 
other  rival  to  fear. 

Valdemar,  from  the  moment  he  became  king  of  Denmark  in 
1340,  when  he  was  twenty-five  years  old  till  his  death  in  1375, 


DENMARK  FROM  1259  TO  1387.  137 

at  the  age  of  sixty,  made  money  the  chief  object  of  his  desire, 
not  because  he  cared  for  hoarding  wealth  but  because  he  was 
most  eager  to  get  back  the  lost  crown-lands  ;  and  he  knew  very 
well  that  there  was  no  way  of  doing  this  except  by  buying  them 
one  by  one  from  those  who  held  them  in  pawn.  It  is  said  that 
he  never  loved  his  wife  Princess  Hedwig  of  Slesvig,  but  he 
had  shown  himself  eager  to  marry  her  on  account  of  her  dowry 
of  24,000  silver  marks.  As  soon  as  the  money  was  in  his 
power  he  used  it  to  redeem  a  large  part  of  Jutland,  and  soon 
afterwards  bought  back  more  of  the  old  Danish  monarchy 
with  the  19,000  silver  marks,  which  he  got  from  the  German 
Knights  in  return  for  the  province  of  Esthonia  which  they 
wanted,  and  which  was  in  truth  of  little  value  to  the  Danes. 
The  people  were  very  well  pleased  to  see  the  old  Danish  pro- 
vinces again  under  the  power  of  the  crown,  and  as  long  as  the 
king  raised  money  without  asking  them  for  it,  they  did  not  very 
much  care  how  he  got  it,  but  when  he  began  to  levy  taxes  for 
the  purpose  they  were  not  so  well  pleased.  The  general  ill-will 
and  grumbling  soon  grew  into  open  rebellion.  Foreign  princes 
brought  help  to  the  men  of  Jutland,  who  had  risen  against  the 
king's  tax-collectors,  and  in  the  civil  wars  which  followed, 
Valdemar's  subjects  in  their  anger  at  the  demands  made  upon 
them  forgot  all  that  he  had  done  for  them. 

Valdemar  looks  about  for  money. — The  king,  however,  did 
not  pay  much  heed  to  what  others  thought  of  him,  and  as  he 
wanted  to  secure  money  at  any  cost,  he  made  up  his  mind  in 
1360  to  attack  the  rich  Hanse-town  of  Wisby  in  the  island  of 
Gothland.  He  had  no  cause  of  quarrel  with  the  Hanse-traders 
at  the  time,  and  had  only  just  signed  a  treaty  in  which  he  had 
pledged  himself  to  respect  their  rights  and  to  give  due  notice  if 
ever  he  meant  to  make  war  on  any  one  of  their  cities.  These 
treaties,  however,  made  little  difference  to  Valdemar,  and 
having  cast  longing  eyes  on  the  stores  of  money,  rich  silks,  furs 
and  other  costly  wares  that  were  housed  away  in  Wisby  to  be 
sent  on  to  the  ports  of  the  Northern  Seas,  he  resolved  to  seize 
upon  them  if  he  could.  Without  giving  any  notice  he  attacked 
the  island  with  a  great  fleet,  and  forced  the  Gothlanders  to 
submit.  After  he  had  made  himself  master  of  the  place  he 
refused  to  pass  through  the  gates  of  Wisby,  and  ordering  a 


13*  SCANDINA  VI  AN  1IISTOR  Y. 

breach  or,  opening  to  be  made  in  the  wall  he  rode  in  state 
into  the  town,  after  the  manner  of  the  great  conquerors  in 
olden  times.  Then  loading  his  ships  with  gold,  silver  and  an 
immense  booty  of  all  kinds,  he  sailed  bark  to  Denmark  in 
great  glee,  and  from  that  time  forth  called  himself  king  of  the 
Goths  as  well  as  of  the  Danes. 

Hut  he  was  not  left  to  enjoy  his  success  very  long,  for  the 
Hanscrs  and  the  Swedes  were  equally  enraged  at  this  act  of 
treachery  and  cruelty,  and  although  the  latter  did  no  more 
than  threaten,  the  former  made  war  in  good  earnest  against 
Valdemar.  When  the  German  heralds  came  in  great  state  to 
the  castle  of  Vordingborg,  where  the  king  was  then  holding 
his  court,  and  began  to  read  aloud  their  formal  notice  of  war, 
he  made  sport  of  them  and  bade  them  go  back  to  the  seventy- 
seven  German  towns  in  whose  name  they  had  come.  It  is 
said  that  Valdemar,  to  show  his  contempt  for  the  traders,  sent 
them  a  letter  in  rhyme  of  which  the  following  was  one  of  the 
least  coarse  and  offensive  verses  :  — 


"  If  scvcnty-^v 

Come  cackling,  come  cackling  at  me  ; 
If  seventy-seven  Hanger* 
Come  crowing,  come  crowing  at  me  ; 
I  Jo  you  think  I  care  two  itivcr-.? 
Not  I  !   I  care  not  two  Mivcr-.  !" 

The  Germans  were  beaten  both  at  sea  and  on  land  in  the 
beginning  of  this  war,  and  Valdemar  caused  his  prisoners  to 
be  shut  up  in  one  of  the  towers  of  Vordingborg  Castle,  over 
which  he  set  a  gilt  goose  as  an  insult  to  the  traders,  whose  name 
of  Hansers  was  in  common  use  for  rocks  or  ganders,  and  was 
often  applied  in  those  times  to  a  foolish  boastful  fellow.  The 
German  traders  grew  mor«:  bitter  tlrtri  ever  against  the  Danish 
king  after  these  insults,  and  they  made  great  efforts  to  i  ollect 
so  large  a  fleet,  that  the  Danes  might  have  no  ch.im.e  of  beating 
them  a  second  time;  besides  which  they  made  common  cause 
with  the  Counts  of  Holstein  and  with  Albert  of  Mer  klenbtirg, 
who  had  private  quarrels  of  their  own  to  avenge  on  Valdemar. 
The  Holstein  princes  were  very  angry  just  at  that  time  because 
the  Danish  king  had  sei/.cd  upo  i  their  sister,  the  J'rinress 
Elizabeth  of  Holstein  Gottorp,  wh  -n  she  was  on  her  way  to 


DENMARK  FROM  1259   TO  1387.  139 

Sweden  to  marry  Hakon,  heir  to  the  Swedish  and  Norwegian 
crowns,  and  had  kept  her  closely  guarded  in  his  own  palace  on 
pretence  that  her  health  would  not  allow  her  to  cross  the  sea  at 
that  stormy  season  of  the  year. 

Valdemar's  real  motive,  however,  had  been  to  prevent  the 
marriage  of  Elizabeth  with  the  Swedish  prince,  as  he  had  set 
his  heart  upon  seeing  his  own  little  daughter  Margaret  married 
to  the  future  king  of  Sweden  and  Norway.  When  therefore 
the  ship  in  which  Elizabeth  was  making  the  voyage  ran  ashore 
on  the  coast  of  Sjselland,  he  resolved  not  to  lose  so  unlocked  for 
a  chance  of  carrying  out  this  scheme.  And  sending  an  urgent 
message  to  the  King  and  Queen  of  Sweden  to  beg  that  they 
would  bring  their  son  to  spend  the  Yule-tide  with  him,  he 
made  all  things  ready,  and  when  they  arrived  he  persuaded 
them  to  consent  to  the  marriage  of  Prince  Hakon  with  his 
daughter  Margaret,  and  let  the  wedding  be  celebrated  at  once. 
It  is  said  that  during  this  visit  Valdemar  induced  his  foolish 
royal  guest  to  give  up  the  bonds  and  charters  by  which  he  held 
in  pawn  Skaania  and  the  other  old  Danish  provinces,  pledged 
to  Sweden  by  King  Christopher,  and  that  he  at  once  burnt 
the  deeds.  There  was  great  rejoicing  at  Copenhagen  on  account 
of  this  event  and  of  the  marriage,  and  feasting  and  jousting 
went  on  day  after  day  for  the  entertainment  of  the  Swedish 
princes,  but  before  the  close  of  all  this  merry-making  the 
Queen  Blanka  of  Sweden  was  taken  ill  and  died,  and  then 
her  husband,  King  Magnus  Snick  offered  to  take  the  Holstein 
princess  to  be  his  second  wife,  if  he  could  be  sure  of  getting 
her  large  dowry.  Poor  Elizabeth  felt  that  this  was  a  cruel 
insult,  and  having  refused  with  anger  to  listen  to  the  king's 
offers,  she  sent  trusted  messengers  to  inform  her  brothers  of 
the  shameful  manner  in  which  she  had  been  treated,  and  to 
entreat  that  they  would  avenge  the  wrongs  she  had  suffered 
at  King  Valdemar's  hands. 

Valdemar  in  trouble. — These  events  had  taken  place  soon 
after  the  Mansers'  first  defeat  by  the  Danes,  and  when  they  heard 
of  the  close  alliance  that  their  enemy  had  formed  with  Sweden 
and  Norway,  they  felt  still  more  anxious  in  regard  to  themselves, 
and  made  such  great  efforts  to  raise  forces  and  excite  enemies 
against  the  king  before  he  could  find  time  to  prepare  another 


140  SCANDLVA  VIAN  HISl^OR  Y. 

expedition  like  the  one  he  had  carried  on  against  Wisby,  that 
he  was  soon  beset  on  all  sides.  Valdemar  did  not  see  the  full 
danger  till  it  was  too  late,  and  when  the  Counts  of  Holstein, 
who  were  eager  to  avenge  the  insult  offered  to  their  sister, 
induced  several  German  princes  to  join  them  and  the  Leaguers 
against  the  Danish  king,  he  was  forced,  after  a  short  but  fierce 
war,  to  submit,  and  to  secure  terms  of  peace  by  giving  up 
Skaania  and  the  other  old  Danish  provinces.  These  lands 
he  had  recovered,  as  we  have  seen,  from  Magnus  Sinek, 
and  the  Danes  who  had  rejoiced  at  their  restoration  to  the 
Danish  monarchy  were  now  equally  mortified  at  their  rapid 
loss,  while  the  Council  of  State  and  all  the  richest  nobles  began 
openly  to  murmur  at  their  king,  and  gladly  made  his  conduct 
an  excuse  for  refusing  him  help  to  carry  on  the  war.  Under 
these  circumstances  Valdemar  could  do  nothing  to  defend 
himself,  and  in  1368  he  left  Denmark,  carrying  with  him  his 
family,  and,  according  to  some  writers,  all  the  gold  and  silver 
that  he  could  collect,  and  went  to  seek  help  from  his  friends 
and  kinsmen  in  Germany. 

For  more  than  four  years  Denmark  remained  without  a 
king,  and  her  people,  either  from  feebleness  or  indifference, 
allowed  the  Germans  and  Holsteiners  to  manage  public  affairs 
as  they  liked.  So  completely  had  the  Hansers  made  themselves 
masters  of  the  Danish  kingdom,  that  Valdemar  had  to  buy 
peace  and  secure  the  right  of  resuming  the  regal  power  at  the 
terms  offered  by  these  traders.  Before  he  could  return  to  his 
own  dominions,  he  was  forced  to  promise  for  himself  and  all 
Ivs  descendants  that  the  traders  of  the  German  Hanse  League 
should  have  a  voice  with  the  Danish  nobles,  prelates  and 
burghers  in  the  election  of  future  kings  of  Denmark.  Thus 
humbled,  Valdemar  came  back  to  Denmark  in  1372,  and 
during  the  remaining  three  years  of  his  life  he  had  the  good 
sense  to  refrain  from  all  attempts  to  make  war  on  his  old 
enemies,  and  to  devote  himself  to  the  good  of  his  people.  In 
spite,  however,  of  all  his  efforts  to  benefit  them,  his  subjects 
never  liked  him,  and  in  the  songs  and  tales  invented  about 
him,  and  repeated  among  the  Danish  peasants  from  one  genera- 
tion after  the  other,  till  almost  our  own  times,  he  is  always 
spoken  of  as  a  hard,  crafty  prince,  ready  to  barter  his  very 


DENMARK  FROM  1259  TO  1387.  141 

soul  for  money,  and  willing  to  sell  the  lives  and  comfort  of  those 
nearest  to  him  to  gratify  his  own  ambition.  The  superstitious 
country-people  long  continued  to  give  proof  of  the  fear  and 
hatred  in  which  this  stern  but  able  king  had  been  held  in  his 
own  times,  for  among  all  their  national  tales,  "  Valdemar  the 
Bad "  was  made  to  play  the  part  of  Satan  or  one  of  his 
favourite  spirits,  and  when  in  the  winter  night's  storm  they 
heard  a  sudden  rush  of  wind  and  a  howling  of  the  tempest, 
they  were  wont  to  say  that  King  Valdemar  was  driving  his 
hounds  with  lash  and  spur  through  the  air  to  the  hunting 
grounds  on  lake  Esrorn  in  North  Sjcelland,  near  his  palace  at 
Gurre,  which  he  was  reported  to  have  said  would  be  dearer  to 
him  after  death  than  heaven  itself. 

Valdemar  was  surnamed  Atterdag,  "  Again  a  day,"  in  allusion 
to  his  favourite  maxim  that  men  should  bide  their  time,  and 
hope  that  if  one  day  brought  trouble  another  day  would  come 
in  which  a  lost  chance  might  be  recovered,  and  he  certainly 
almost  always  acted  up  to  this  precept.  The  death  in  1374  of 
Henry,  Duke  of  Slesvig,  the  last  direct  descendant  of  King 
Abel,  had  given  Valdemar  the  hope  of  bringing  that  much- 
coveted  province  back  to  the  crown ;  but  before  he  could 
take  formal  possession  of  the  duchy  as  a  lapsed  fief,  he  himself 
died  suddenly  at  the  age  of  sixty.  With  him  ended  the  last 
direct  male  representative  of  the  Valdemars,  and  thus  the  two 
main  branches  of  the  Svend  Estridsen  line  of  descent  became 
extinct  at  the  same  time.  Valdemar's  only  son  had  died  some 
years  earlier  leaving  no  family,  and  his  nearest  male  heirs 
were,  therefore,  the  sons  of  his  daughters  Ingeborg  and 
Margaret.  The  elder  of  these  princesses  had  married  Count 
Albert  of  Mecklenburg,  and  at  her  death  she  had  left  one  son 
Albert.  The  younger  of  his  daughters,  Margaret,  had  been 
given  in  marriage  when  quite  a  child,  as  we  have  already  seen, 
to  Hakon  King  of  Norway  in  his  own  right,  and  son  of  Magnus 
King  of  Sweden,  and  she  too  had  one  son,  Olaf,  who  succeeded 
his  grandfather  Valdemar  on  the  throne  of  Denmark. 

Olaf,  1375-1387. — On  the  death  of  King  Valdemar,  the 
Council  of  State  and  the  nobles  were  divided  in  their  opinions 
in  regard  to  the  claims  of  his  grandsons.  Most  persons  felt 
that  Albert  of  Mecklenburg,  as  the  son  of  the  late  king's  eldest 


1 42  SCAN  DIN  A  VI AN  HIS  TOR  Y. 

daughter,  had  the  best  right  to  the  throne,  but  the  Danes  hated 
all  Germans,  and  were  just  then  especially  distrustful  of  the 
Mecklenburg  family,  owing  to  the  close  alliance  into  which 
those  princes  had  entered  with  Denmark's  hereditary  enemies, 
the  Counts  of  Holstein.  For  these  reasons,  and  because  the 
Danes  had  strong  feelings  of  loyalty  and  affection  towards 
the  young  Queen  Margaret  of  Norway,  they  passed  over  the 
elder  branch  and  gave  the  crown  to  her  son  Olaf,  who  was 
proclaimed  king  in  the  same  year,  1375.  As  the  little  prince 
was  only  five  years  old  at  the  time,  his  parents,  Hakon  and 
Margaret,  took  the  oaths  for  him,  and  signed  in  his  name  a 
charter  which  secured  to  the  nobles  the  same  rights  which  they 
had  demanded  from  Christopher  II. 

King  Hakon  died  in  1380,  and  was  succeeded  by  young 
Olaf,  who  thus  again  united  Denmark  and  Norway  under  one 
ruler,  but  the  death  of  that  prince  at  the  age  of  seventeen  in 
1387,  before  he  had  exercised  independent  power,  destroyed 
the  hopes  that  had  been  raised  by  his  early  talents  and  good 
disposition.  His  mother  Queen  Margaret  had  ruled  over 
both  kingdoms  in  his  name  since  the  death  of  her  father  and 
husband,  and  by  her  tact  and  ability  had  succeeded  in  gaining 
the  confidence  of  the  Danish  and  Norwegian  nobles,  and  in 
restoring  some  degree  of  order  into  the  countries  under  her 
sway.  The  only  act  of  her  government  which  proved  a  source 
of  future  evil  was  her  granting  South  Jutland,  or  Slesvig,  as 
an  hereditary  fief  to  Count  Gerhard.  VI.  of  Holstein  in  1386. 
This  step  she  had  been  unwillingly  led  to  take  in  order  to 
hinder  the  formation  of  an  alliance  then  threatening  against 
Denmark,  between  the  Holstein  princes  and  her  enemies,  the 
Counts  of  Mecklenburg,  who  were  already  supported  by  the 
Manse  League  and  other  German  powers.  But  in  the  end  it 
brought  troubles,  which  were  far  worse  than  any  it  prevented, 
both  to  Queen  Margaret  and  to  Denmark  long  after  her  time. 


CHAPTER  XI. 

SWEDEN    IN    EARLY    TIMES. 

Sweden  in  early  Christian  times — Upsala — A  hundred  years  of  murder  and 
trouble  among  the  Swedish  kings — Sverker  Karlsson — Better  times — 
Erik  the  "  Saint  "  ;  his  laws  in  favour  of  women — Erik's  crusades  ;  his 
death  ;  becomes  patron  Saint  of  Sweden — A  century  of  troubles  to  the 
end  of  Bondar  race  of  kings  in  1250 — Sweden  less  civilized  than  Den- 
mark —  Danish  princess  Rikissa — Swedish  women  refuse  to  follow 
Danish  habits  of  luxury — Norway  after  the  death  of  Magnus  the  Good 
in  1047 — Harald  Haardraade ;  his  wish  to  invade  Denmark  ;  his 
adventures  in  the  East ;  his  escape  from  prison  ;  his  marriage  ;  his 
invasion  of  England  in  1066  ;  his  death — Olaf  reigns  in  Norway  ;  his 
son  Magnus,  the  kilt-wearer — The  three  brother-kings — Sigurd  goes  to 
Jerusalem;  gives  away  his  ships  and  returns  to  Norway  over-land— 
Murder  and  trouble — Norway's  age  of  mis-rule — The  "Birch  Legs" 
and  the  "Croziers"  disturb  the  kingdom — Many  claimants  of  the 
crown — Hakon  IV.  a  great  king  who  restores  Norway  to  some  credit, 
and  begins  a  new  course  of  order — Crown  declared  to  be  a  Fief  of 
St.  Olaf — Increased  influence  of  Church. 


PART  I. 
FIRST     CHRISTIAN     KINGS. 

Sweden  in  early  times. — WHILE  the  sons  and  direct  descen- 
dants of  King  Svend  Estridsen  had  continued  to  maintain  the 
doctrines  of  the  Church  of  Rome  in  Denmark,  and  almost 
without  exception  to  favour  the  Romish  clergy  and  cnricli  them 
at  the  expense  of  other  orders  of  the  state,  Christianity  was 
still  struggling  for  tolerance,  if  not  for  existence  in  Sweden. 


144  SCANDINA  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 


After  Olaf  Sk6i  Konning,  the  "  Lap  King,"  had  established  the 
Christian  faith  in  about  the  year  1000,  it  again  began  to  decline 
under  his  eldest  son  Anund  Jacob,  and  was  so  neglected  under 
his  younger  son  Edmund  Gammal,  that  before  the  death  of 
that  prince  about  the  year  1056,  it  seemed  to  have  been  nearly 
driven  out  of  the  land. 

Upsala,  which  from  the  time  of  Frey  Ingve  had  been  the 
seat  of  the  king  and  chief  priests  of  the  Svea,  continued  for  a 
long  time  alter  those  princes  had  become  Christians  to  be 
looked  upon  as  the  most  sacred  spot  in  their  dominions.  Here 
Christian  as  well  as  pagan  kings  received  the  homage  of  the 
people,  standing  on  the  king's  stone  of  Upsala,  within  sight  of 
the  hill  on  which  the  first  temple  to  Odin  was  built  by  the  old 
rulers  of  the  Svea.  Here  too,  the  people  met  to  discuss  public 
affairs  long  after  they  had  become  Christians,  as  their  fore- 
fathers had  done  when  they  held  their  yearly  Thing  in  the  plain 
on  which  Odin's  temple  stood.  The  control  of  this  sacred 
spot  was  the  chief  cause  of  the  respect  paid  by  the  people  of 
Southern  Sweden  or  Gautland  (Gothland)  to  the  rulers  of 
Svithjod,  and  when  Edmund  Gammal,  the  last  of  the  Ynglin- 
gar  or  Upsala  race,  died  leaving  no  children,  a  fierce  struggle 
broke  out  between  the  two  nations,  which  ended  in  the  men 
of  West-Gautland  proving  themselves  stronger  than  the 
Svea  and  able  to  set  up  a  Christian  King  Stenkil,  one  of 
their  own  people,  to  rule  over  all  Sweden.  Dining  his  reign 
from  1056  to  1066  the  pagans  and  Christians  lived  together 
in  peace,  and  there  was  a  short  rest  from  warfare.  After 
the  death  of  Stenkil,  who  had  been  Jarl  of  Vestergotland 
before  he  came  to  the  throne,  and  was  descended  through  his 
mother  from  the  old  Ynglingar  race  of  kings,  several  of  his 
sons  and  near  kinsmen  were  in  turn  made  kings.  But  Sweden 
was  equally  disturbed  under  all  the  successive  rulers  who  oc- 
cupied the  throne  for  nearly  a  century.  Religious  wars  raged 
with  violence  for  the  greater  part  of  that  period,  and  the  country 
was  so  torn  by  factions,  that  at  last  all  the  princes  of  the  royal 
race  were  slain  together  with  a  great  number  of  the  chieftains. 
In  this  state  of  disorder  no  bishops  ventured  to  remain  in 
Sweden,  and  there  would  have  been  no  Christian  churches  left, 
if  a  few  urjnks  had  not  come  from  Skaania  and  kept  alive  some 


SWEDEN  IN  EARLY  TIMES.  145 

knowledge  of  their  religion  among  the  people.  At  one  time 
both  Svea  and  Gauta  obeyed  a  pagan  king,  and  after  setting 
aside  Christianity  joined  together  in  offering  sacrifices  to  Odin, 
and  partaking  of  horse-flesh,  which  was  looked  upon  as  a  kind 
of  solemn  sacrament  in  the  worship  of  the  god.  At  another 
time  there  was  no  king,  either  among  the  Svea  or  the  Gauta ; 
and  then  the  chief  law-explainers  in  Svithjod  and  in  Gautland 
ruled  each  in  his  own  district. 

First  dawn  of  better  times. — The  first  prince  under  whom 
these  troubles  began  to  lessen  was  a  Christian  called  Sverker 
Karlsson.  This  king,  who  reigned  from  about  1135  to  1155, 
and  whose  rule  fell,  therefore,  within  the  same  period  as 
that  of  Stephen  in  England,  built  churches  and  monasteries, 
and  invited  monks  of  the  order  of  St.  Bernard,  from  Clairvaux 
in  France,  to  come  and  take  charge  of  these  houses.  He  even 
sent  messengers  to  the  pope,  praying  that  bishops  might  be 
settled  in  Sweden,  and  a  place  chosen  for  the  see  of  a  primate, 
that  the  Swedes  might  no  longer  have  to  be  under  the  power  of 
a  foreign  church  ;  for  up  to  that  time  all  Scandinavia  was  in- 
cluded in  the  see  of  the  Danish  Archbishop  of  Lund.  The 
pope,  in  1152,  sent  his  friend,  Cardinal  Nicholaus  Albinensis,  to 
Sweden  to  see  if  King  Sverker's  wishes  could  be  complied  with, 
but  as  it  was  found  that  the  Svea  and  the  Gauta  were  too 
jealous  of  each  other  to  agree  upon  the  choice  of  a  district  for  the 
primate's  see,  the  matter  was  dropped  for  the  time.  The  cardinal1 
was  able,  however,  before  he  left  the  country  to  secure  for  the 
Court  of  Rome  the  promise  of  the  payment  from  the  Swedish 
people  of  the  tax  known  as  St.  Peter's  pence.  Thus  for  the  first 
time  in  her  history  Sweden  gave  public  proof  of  her  union  with 
the  Church  of  Rome.  Sverker's  old  age  was  troubled  by  civil 
wars,  in  which  his  son  Johan  took  an  active  part,  and  was  at 
length  slain  by  a  band  of  peasants,  who  had  been  enraged  by 
the  vicious  and  headstrong  conduct  of  the  young  prince.  At 
this  moment  the  Danes  attacked  the  Swedish  coasts,  but  were 
beaten  off  by  the  men  of  Smaaland,  who  could  obtain  no  help 
from  their  unwarlike  old  king;  and  the  angry  feelings  which 
had  been  roused  by  Sverker's  want  of  courage  led  in  1155  to 

1  Nicholas  Breakspear,  afterwards  Adrian  IV.,  the  first  and  only 
English  pope. 

L 


146  SCANDINAVIAN  HISTORY. 

his  murder  at  the  hands  of  his  own  servants,  while  he  was  on 
his  way  to  church  to  hear  mass  on  Christinas  Eve. 

The  Bondar,  or  freemen  of  Svithjod,  met  together  at  Upsala 
to  choose  a  new  king  as  soon  as  the  death  of  Sverker  was 
made  known,  and  they  were  soon  joined  by  the  men  of  West- 
Gautland,  but  as  usual  they  could  not  agree.  While  the  Svea 
declared  they  would  have  none  other  than  Erik  Jedvardsson  to 
sit  upon  the  king's  seat  at  Upsala,  the  Gauta  refused  to  have 
any  king  but  Sverker's  son  Karl.  The  former  were,  however, 
the  stronger  of  the  two,  and  Erik  became  king.  This  prince, 
who  was  a  first  cousin  of  the  late  King  Sverker,  belonged 
through  his  father  Jedvard  to  the  peasant  or  bondar  class, 
from  which  his  descendants  took  the  name  of  the  Bondar  race, 
and  for  more  than  a  hundred  years  the  throne  of  Sweden  was 
filled  by  one  of  this  family,  or  by  a  prince  of  the  Sverker  line. 
Murder  was  in  general  the  means  by  which  each  party  got  rid 
of  a  king  of  the  opposite  race  to  the  one  which  they  upheld, 
and  thus  the  disputes  which  began  when  Erik,  instead  of 
Sverker's  son  Karl,  was  chosen  king,  were  handed  down  from 
one  age  to  another  and  grew  more  fierce  with  time. 

Erik  the  Saint,  1155-1160. — Erik,  who  after  his  death 
gained  for  himself  the  title  of  "  Saint,"  worked  hard  during  his 
short  reign  of  five  years  to  improve  the  state  of  the  country. 
There  were  three  things,  the  old  sagas  tell  us,  which  King  Erik 
the  Saint  laid  to  heart,  and  these  were  :— "  To  build  churches 
and  to  improve  the  services  of  religion,  to  rule  his  people 
according  to  law  and  right,  and  to  overpower  the  enemies 
of  his  faith  and  realm."  He  was  known  in  history  not 
only  as  the  Saint,  but  also  as  Erik  "  Lag-gifware,"  or  the 
Law-giver,  and  is  said  to  have  won  the  love  and  grateful 
respect  of  all  the  women  of  Sweden  by  the  laws  which  he 
passed  to  secure  to  them  many  rights,  of  which  these  three 
were  the  most  important,  viz.,  that  every  wife  should  have 
equal  power  with  her  husband  over  locks,  bolts  and  bars ;  that 
she  might  claim  half  his  bed  during  his  life  ;  and  that  she 
might  enjoy  one-third  of  his  substance  after  his  death. 

Erik  was  the  first  king  who  erected  a  church  at  Upsala, 
where  up  to  his  time  the  worship  of  Odin  had  been  kept  up  by 
force,  at  the  cost  of  Christians  as  well  as  of  pagans.  Now. 


SWEDEN  IN  EARL  Y  TIMES.  147 

however,  a  primate's  see  rose  at  Gamla  (old)  Upsala,  and  a 
learned  and  pious  man  named  Henrik  was  appointed  to  be  the 
first  archbishop.  This  prelate  went  with  King  Erik  on  a 
crusade  against  the  pagan  Finns,  who  had  long  been  a  scourge 
to  the  poor  people  of  the  eastern  coasts  of  Sweden,  burning  and 
plundering  their  homesteads  with  as  little  mercy  as  the  Northern 
Vikingar  had  in  bygone  ages  shown  their  victims.  Arch- 
bishop Henrik  paid  with  his  life  for  his  zeal  in  trying  to  convert 
these  heathen  pirates,  but  his  efforts  and  those  of  the  king  had 
the  effect  of  bringing  Finland  under  the  power  of  Sweden, 
wirh  which  it  remained  united  for  many  ages.  Erik  owed  his 
death  to  the  attack  of  a  Danish  prince,  Magnus  Henriksen, 
who,  thinking  that  the  troubled  state  of  Upper  Sweden  might 
be  favourable  to  the  claims  which  he  pretended  to  have  on  the 
Swedish  throne,  made  a  sudden  attack  on  Upsala  while  Erik 
was  hearing  mass  in  Trinity  Church.  When  the  alarm  was 
given  and  the  king  was  warned  of  the  approach  of  Magnus,  he 
refused  to  leave  the  church  till  the  close  of  the  service,  but 
then  rushing  forward  at  the  head  of  his  men  he  met  the 
Danes,  and  after  a  fierce  fight  was  cut  down  and  slain  by  the 
invaders. 

Erik's  virtues  and  piety  gained  for  him  the  love  of  his  people, 
who  worshipped  him  as  their  patron  saint,  although  he  was 
never  canonized,  on  account  of  the  greater  favour  in  which 
the  rival  house  of  the  Sverkers  had  for  many  years  been  held 
by  the  papal  court.1 


PART  II. 

TROUBLED     TIMES. 

The  Bondar. — The  century  which  divided  the  first  and  last  of 
the  Bondar  race  was  marked  by  one  constant  struggle,  in  which 

1  The  remains  of  St.  Erik  were  for  many  ages  preserved  in  the  cathedral 
of  Upsala  and  honoured  as  holy  relics.  His  arms  were  emblazoned  on  the 
National  Flag  of  Sweden,  and  a  figure  of  the  sainted  king  appears  also  on 
the  banner  and  seal  of  the  town  of  Stockholm. 

L    2 


148  SCANDINA  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 

no  class  except  the  clergy  increased  in  power,  or  even  kept  their 
old  position  in  the  state.  Erik,  the  first  of  the  Bondar,  died  in 
1160,  and  Erik  Eriksson  Lcespe,  the  last,  of  the  race,  died  in 
1250,  a  period  that  included  nearly  all  the  years  of  the  reigns 
of  the  first  four  of  our  Plantagenet  kings,  viz.,  Henry  II., 
Richard  I.,  John,  and  Henry  III.;  for  Henry  II.  came  to  the 
throne  in  1154,  and  his  grandson  Henry  III.  ended  his  long  reign 
of  fifty-six  years  in  1272.  Yet  in  all  that  long  period,  there  is 
little  or  nothing  to  record  of  affairs  in  Sweden  but  the  quarrels, 
wars,  and  murders  of  many  kings,  and  the  disorder  and  misery 
of  the  whole  country.  The  only  class  of  men  who  did  any- 
thing to  lessen  these  evils  were  the  monks,  many  of  whom  had 
come  from  England.  These  zealous  men  first  taught  the 
Swedes  how  to  till  the  ground  and  plant  gardens,  to  prepare 
salt,  to  build  and  work  water-mills,  and  to  make  roads  and 
bridges.  Besides  this  they  also  strove  to  make  them  give  up 
some  of  the  many  evil  pagan  practices  to  which  they  still 
clung,  as  for  instance  divorcing  their  wives  whenever  they  grew 
tired  of  them  and  marrying  others  according  to  old  heathen 
forms ;  and  thrusting  their  children  out,  or  exposing  infants  in 
desert  places  to  perish  from  cold  and  want  when  they  did  not 
care  to  be  burdened  with  them.  The  greater  number  of  the 
monks  who  came  over  to  Sweden  in  those  early  times  met  their 
death  by  violence,  but  their  memory  has  lingered  nearly  to  the 
present  day  in  the  different  districts  in  which  they  carried  on 
their  labours.  Thus  the  people  of  Westmanland  long  honoured 
the  Irish  monk  David  as  a  saint,  while  in  Sudermanland  and 
Norland  the  names  of  the  English  martyrs,  St.  Bolhurd,  St. 
Askill,  and  St.  Stephen,  were  for  many  ages  held  in  great 
esteem,  and  their  relics  guarded  with  much  care.  During  this 
troubled  period  in  Sweden,  when  the  country  was  laid  waste  by 
the  civil  wars  between  the  Bondar  and  Sverkcr  races  of  kings, 
Denmark  often  took  an  active  share  in  these  disputes,  and 
gave  refuge  to  the  defeated  princes  of  both  parties  in  turn. 
Thus  when  Sverker  Karlsson  had  murdered  all  but  one  of  t he- 
grandsons  of  St.  Erik,  and  the  Swedish  people  threatened  to 
take  vengeance  for  these  acts  of  cruelty,  he  escaped  from  their 
fury  by  fleeing  to  Denmark,  where  lie  was  well  recencd  and 
helped  by  the  Danish  king,  Valdemar  II.,  who  sent  him  back 


SWEDEN  IN  EARLY  TIMES.  149 

to  Sweden  with  a  fleet  and  an  army.  Sverker's  defeat  by  his 
former  subjects  in  a  battle,  fought  at  Lena  in  West  Gothland  in 
1208,  in  which  he  was  slain,  forced  the  Danish  king  to  with- 
draw his  troops  without  having  done  anything  to  add  to  the 
fame  of  Denmark  in  Sweden  ;  and  as  soon  as  Erik  Knutsson, 
the  grandson  of  Erik  the  Saint,  proved  himself  strong  enough  to 
seize  upon  the  throne,  Valdemar  II.  made  peace  with  him,  and 
even  gave  him  his  sister  Rikissa  in  marriage. 

Erik  Knutsson,  1210-121 6. — Erik  Knutsson,who  reigned  from 
1 2 10  to  1216,  was  the  first  king  of  Sweden  who  was  crowned  at 
the  hands  of  the  clergy  within  a  church,  for  before  his  time  the 
Swedish  kings  were  simply  proclaimed  in  public.  It  is  related 
that  Sweden  was  still  much  less  civilized  than  Denmark,  and 
that  when  the  young  Princess  Rikissa  landed  in  West  Gothland 
to  be  married  to  King  Erik,  she  found  that  there  were  no 
carriages  of  any  kind,  and  that  she  had  to  make  the  long 
journey  to  her  husband's  court  on  horseback.  When  she 
complained  of  this,  the  Swedish  women  cried  out  angrily 
against  the  young  queen's  love  of  ease,  saying,  "  We  will  have 
none  of  your  new-fangled  Danish  fashions,  our  queens  have 
never  yet  been  too  weak  to  sit  upon  a  horse."  So  after  that 
Rikissa  had  to  try  to  make  the  best  of  what  she  found  in 
Sweden,  but  as  soon  as  her  husband  Erik  died,  she  returned  to 
Denmark,  taking  with  her  her  little  son  Erik,  called  "  Lsespe," 
or  the  Halt. 

This  prince  was  raised  to  the  throne  in  1222  on  the  death 
of  the  last  of  the  Sverker  race,  Johan  Sverkersson,  and  his  reign 
lasted  till  1250,  when  the  Bondar  line  of  kings  died  out  with 
him.  He  had  not  been  suffered  to  rule  in  peace,  and  more 
than  once  this  last  of  the  Bondar  kings  had  to  flee  from  his 
kingdom  and  take  refuge  with  his  mother's  kinsmen  in  Den- 
mark. A  new  race,  known  as  the  "  Folkungar,"  came  into 
power  during  his  reign,  and  gained  such  a  footing  in  the  state, 
that  Erik  Lsespe,  against  his  will,  had  to  give  the  title  of  "  Jarl 
of  the  Swedes  and  Goths"  to  the  rich  and  powerful  Birger 
Brosa,  who  was  at  that  time  head  of  this  great  family.  The 
rank  of  Jari  and  duke  gave  Birger  much  power,  while  his  wealth 
helped  him  to  live  in  a  princely  style.  The  clergy  showed  him 
marked  favour  in  return  for  the  aid  he  gave  them  in  trying  to 


1 50  SCANDIXA  VI AN  IIISTOR  Y. 

have  church-assemblies  made  free  of  control  from  the  state  ; 
and  he  won  the  good-will  of  all  devout  churchmen  by  setting 
on  foot  a  crusade  against  the  pagan  Finns,  whom  he  forced  at 
the  point  of  the  sword  to  renounce  their  old  faith  and  receive 
baptism.  The  Jarl  had  not  returned  from  Finland  when  Erik 
Lasspe  died  in  1250,  and  the  Swedish  Council  being  anxious 
to  act  independently  of  him,  proceeded  to  elect  a  new  king  in 
his  absence.  After  a  long  and  stormy  debate,,  their  choice  fell 
upon  Jarl  Birger's  eldest  son,  Valdemar,  who  through  his  mother 
was  closely  related  to  the  royal  families  of  Sweden  and  Denmark, 
she  being  sister  of  the  late  King  Krik  Lsespe  and  niece  of  the 
Danish  kings  Knud  VI.  and  Valdemar  II.  Their  choice  of 
Valdemar  gave  offence  to  his  father,  who  was  indignant  when 
he  learnt  that  his  wife's  claims  on  the  succession  had  been 
thought  better  than  his  own. 

We  will,  however,  leave  for  another  chapter  the  story  of 
young  Valdemar  of  Sweden  and  his  father  Birger  Jarl,  and 
proceed  at  once  to  the  history  of  Norway,  which  we  must 
resume  from  the  time  of  Harald  Haardraade,  the  ablest  and 
most  powerful  ruler  in  Northern  Europe  during  the  middle  of 
the  eleventh  century. 


PART  III. 

THE     EARLY     TROUBLES     OF     NORWAY. 

Harald  II. — We  have  seen  that  when  King  Magnus  of 
Norway  died  in  1047,  and  gave  the  kingdom  of  Denmark  to 
Knud  the  Great's  nephew,  Svend  Estridsen,  he  left  his  Nor- 
wegian crown  to  his  uncle  Harald.  This  prince  known  in 
history  as  Harald  Haardraade.  and  to  the  Danes  of  his  own 
and  later  times  as  "  Denmark's  Blight,"  and  the  "  Lightning  of 
the  North,"  was  by  no  means  satisfied  with  his  nephew's  way  of 
disposing  of  his  crowns,  and  was  eager  to  go  to  war  with  Svend 
almost  before  the  breath  was  out  of  King  Magnus's  body.  But 
the  Norwegians  refused  to  fight  for  him,  declaring  in  the  first 
Thing  held  after  the  death  of  their  king,  that  they  "  would  rather 
follow  the  dead%  Magnus  than  the  living  Harald,"  and  the  new 
king  had  therefore  to  content  himself  with  his  one  crown. 


NOR  WA  Y  IN  EARL  Y  TIMES.  1 5 1 

Harald  had  in  his  earlier  days  gone  through  many  strange 
adventures  at  the  court  of  Byzantium,  where  he  was  for  some 
time  chief  captain  of  the  Vaeringjar;  and  the  story  of  the 
Empress  Zoe's  love  for  him,  and  his  daring  escape  by  night 
from  the  prison  where  he  had  been  put  through  her  jealous 
desire  to  prevent  his  departure,  was  made  the  subject  of  many 
romances  during  his  own  and  later  times.  After  his  escape 
with  all  the  other  Northmen  from  "  Miklagaard,"  or  Constan- 
tinople, with  vast  treasures  in  gold  and  precious  stones,  he  had 
gone  to  Russia  and  married  his  cousin  Elizabeth,  daughter  of 
Jarislav  of  Novogorod,  and  returned  with  her  and  all  his 
soldiers  and  slaves  to  Norway,  where  he  had  done  his  best  to 
stir  up  strife  and  raise  wars  against  his  nephew,  King  Magnus. 
When  he  came  to  the  throne  he  at  once  plunged  into  vikings 
and  quarrels  with  his  neighbours,  and  as  we  know  through  our 
Old  English  History,  it  was  this  king,  who  at  the  request  of 
Tostig,  brother  of  Harald  King  of  Kngland,  invaded  our  is- 
land and  was  defeated  and  slain  at  Stamford  Bridge  on  the 
25th  of  September,  1066. * 

Olaf  Kyrre,  1066-1093. — Olaf,  the  eldest  son  of  Harald 
Haardraade,  who  had  come  to  England  with  his  father,  made  a 
treaty  with  Harald  King  of  England  after  the  battle  of  Stam- 
ford Bridge,  in  accordance  with  which  he  was  allowed  to  depart 
in  peace  with  his  men  and  ships.  On  his  return  to  Norway, 
he  became  king  in  the  place  of  his  father,  and  unlike  him 
gained  the  love  of  his  people,  who  called  him  Olaf  "  Kyrre," 
or  the  Peaceful,  because  in  his  time  they  were  not  plagued 
with  wars.  We  are  told  that  in  this  reign,  the  Norwegians 
began  to  enjoy  comforts  which  their  forefathers  had  never 
known,  and  that  houses  were  now  first  built  with  windows 

1  It  is  related  that  before  the  fight  King  Harald  of  England  sent  to  offer 
Tostig  terms,  promising  that  if  he  would  lay  down  his  arms  and  join  him, 
he  would  give  him  the  third  of  England  for  his  share  ;  — "  And  what  will 
I  larald  of  England  give  Ilarald  of  Norway,  my  friend  and  ally  ?  "  asked  the 
earl.  "  Seven  feet  of  England's  earth  for  a  grave,"  answered  the  English 
king's  messenger,  "  or  a  foot  more  may  be,  since  his  length  of  body  exceeds 
that  of  other  men  !  "  "  Then  ride  back  to  your  master,  and  tell  him  to  arm 
for  the  fight,"  cried  Tostig,  "for  it  shall  never  be  told  in  Norway  that 
Tostig  of  Northumbria  forsook  King  Ilarald  in  the  land  of  his  foes.  To- 
gether we  will  conquer  England,  or  die  with  honour." 


1 52  SCANDINA  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 

instead  of  mere  holes  to  let  in  air  and  light,  and  with  closed-in 
stoves  in  the  place  of  rude  open  hearths.  Olaf  loved  show  and 
company,  and  he  kept  a  court  with  officers  of  state  like  the 
kings  of  other  lands,  and  did  all  he  could  to  teach  his 
people  the  more  polished  manners  he  had  seen  among  the 
southern  nations  of  Europe. 

When  Olaf  died  in  1093,  m's  son  Magnus  Barfocl  became 
king,  and  this  prince  who  was  very  much  like  his  grandfather, 
Harald  Haardraade,  was  as  fond  of  war  as  his  father  Olaf  had 
been  of  peace.  He  soon  got  into  a  quarrel  with  the  Swedish 
king,  in  regard  to  the  boundary-line  between  their  kingdoms, 
but  in  i TO i  a  peace  was  made,  in  which  it  was  agreed  that 
Magnus  should  marry  the  Swedish  princess,  Margrete,  who  on 
that  account  was  known  as  Fred  Knlla,  or  the  "  Peace- 
Maiden."  Magnus  next  turned  his  arms  against  the  Western 
Islands  and  Scotland,  and  after  forcing  the  natives  to  pay  him 
tribute,  he  went  to  the  Isles  of  Man  and  Anglesea,  both  of 
which  he  subdued.  His  last  attempt  was  to  conquer  Ireland, 
but  having  gone  too  far  inland,  he  was  cut  off  from  his  ships  by  a 
large  band  of  Irish  peasants,  and  he  and  all  his  men  were  slain. 
It  is  said  that  he  took  his  name  "  Barfod,"  "  Bare-legs,"  from  his 
habit  of  wearing  a  kilt  like  the  men  of  Cantyre,  amongst  whom 
he  had  spent  some  time.  When  the  people  of  Norway  first  saw 
their  king  with  naked  legs  and  short  skirts  they  laughed  at  him, 
but  Magnus  was  not  a  man  to  trouble  himself  about  his  subjects' 
laughter,  and  he  kept  to  the  highland  dress  to  the  end  of  his  days. 

The  Three  Kings. — When  the  news  of  Magnus'  death  reached 
Norway  in  1103,  the  people  chcse  his  three  sons,  Kjsten,  Si- 
gurd and  Olaf  to  be  their  joint  kings.  Olafs  death  while  he  was 
still  a  child,  and  Sigurd's  absence  for  some  years  in  the  Holy 
Land,  left  Kjsten  for  a  time  sole  King  of  Norway,  but  when 
Sigurd  came  back  from  the  crusades,  he  ruled  jointly  with  his 
brother.  Kjsten  was  of  a  quiet  gentle  nature,  but  Sigurd  was 
so  restless  and  wayward,  that  one  might  almost  suppose  him  to 
have  been  insane.  He  had  gone  to  the  Holy  Land  with  a 
large  fleet,  which  he  used  to  put  down  pirates  in  the  Mediter- 
ranean, and  after  making  his  way  to  Jerusalem  and  helping  to 
take  Sidon  from  the  Infidels,  he  paid  a  visit  to  the  Greek  em- 
peror, Alexius,  at  Constantinople.  There  he  stayed  some  time, 


NOR  IV A  Y  IN  EA RL  Y  TIMES.  1 53 

and  in  return  for  the  costly  presents  made  to  him  by  the 
emperor;  he  gave  him  as  a  parting  gift  all  his  ships,  and 
returned  to  Norway  by  way  of  Hungary,  Germany  and 
Denmark.  After  this  great  adventure,  he  took  the  name  of 
"  Jorsalafar,"  or  "  the  Jerusalemite,"  and  on  his  return  to  his 
own  kingdom,  he  did  all  he  could  to  raise  the  power  of  the 
clergy,  and  induce  his  people  to  follow  some  of  the  practices  of 
the  Christian  churches  in  the  South  of  Europe  which  had  not 
before  been  known  in  Norway.  As  soon  as  he  became  sole 
King  of  Norway  on  the  death  of  his  brother  Ejsten  in  1 1 23,  he 
put  down  many  of  the  old  forms  of  law,  and  ordered  that 
doubtful  cases  should  always  be  decided  by  means  of  the 
ordeal  of  a  red-hot  iron.  This  new  practice  proved  a  very 
unlucky  one  to  Sigurd  himself,  for  it  happened  that  towards  the 
end  of  his  life  a  man  came  to  Norway  from  Ireland,  who  claimed 
to  be  a  son  of  the  king's  father  Magnus  Barfod,  and  demanded 
to  have  the  truth  of  his  words  tested  by  ordeal.  The  king 
gave  his  consent,  and  this  man,  who  was  believed  to  be  an  im- 
postor, but  who  called  himself  Harald  Gille  Magnusson,  went 
through  the  ordeal  in  the  presence  of  Sigurd  and  a  large  number 
of  people,  and  was  at  once  owned  by  the  king  as  his  brother. 
On  the  death  of  Sigurd,  his  son  Magnus,  who  was  a  very  vicious 
prince,  tried  to  drive  the  new  claimant  out  of  the  country, 
but  the  people  of  Norway  who  had  by  that  time  learnt  to  think 
him  more  fitted  to  be  their  king  than  Magnus,  would  not  suffer 
him  to  be  set  aside,  and  in  the  end  they  chose  both  these 
princes  to  rule  jointly  over  the  kingdom. 

Magnus  and  Harald  did  not  long  remain  good  friends,  and 
the  Danes  as  usual  were  not  slow  to  take  part  in  the  civil  war, 
which  very  quickly  broke  out  in  the  kingdom.  When  Harald 
was  beaten  by  his  rival  he  took  refuge  in  Denmark,  from  which 
he  returned  with  an  army  ;  and  while  he  was  making  war  in  one 
part  of  Norway,  the  Wends  were  pillaging  other  portions  ol 
the  country. 

Norway's  age  of  troubles. — Norway,  like  the  other  northern 
kingdoms,  was  doomed  to  pass  through  a  century  of  civil  wars. 
No  other  country  has  perhaps  ever  been  troubled  by  so  many 
claimants  of  the  throne  in  so  short  a  time,  and  from  before  the 
middle  of  the  twelfth  to  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  century, 


1 54  SC AND  IN  A  VIA  N  HISTOR 1 r. 

that  is  from  the  reign  of  our  Henry  I.  to  the  twenty-fourth  year 
of  Henry  III.,  there  was  no  peace  for  the  kingdom  from  these 
pretenders.  Some  of  these  men  had  perhaps  real  claims  to  the 
throne,  but  whether  true  or  false,  the  claimants  for  the  most  part 
lost  their  lives  by  violence.  Harald  Gille's  first  act  had  been 
to  blind  his  fellow-king  Magnus,  and  in  the  next  year  he  was 
himself  strangled  in  his  bed  at  Bergen  by  Sigurd,  a  man  who 
claimed  to  be  also  a  son  of  Magnus  Barfod,  and  who  after 
killing  Harald  Gille,  took  the  blind  king  Magnus  out  of  the 
prison  in  which  he  had  been  thrown,  and  set  him  on  the  throne. 
Then  a  new  war  broke  out,  and  Sigurd  and  Magnus  the  Blind 
were  both  killed  in  battle. 

Many  parties  now  sprang  up  in  the  country,  known  by  a 
great  number  of  names,  and  of  these  the  strongest  were  Birke- 
bcncrnc,  "the  Birch  Legs,"  and  Baglcrne,  or  "the  Croxiers." 
The  former  took  their  name  from  the  birch-bark  sandals  or 
leggings,  which  they  were  forced  to  wear  for  want  of  proper 
shoes,  and  the  latter  from  the  word  "  bagall,"  the  latin  baci/Ius, 
a  croxier,  because  their  first  leader  had  been  Nicholaus,  Bishop 
of  Oslo.  The  greatest  leader  of  the  "  Birch  Legs  "  was  Sverre, 
who  in  1176  gave  himself  out  to  be  a  son  of  King  Sigurd  II., 
but  was  believed  by  most  persons  to  be  the  son  of  a  brush-maker 
of  Trondhjem,  who  had  received  some  learning  in  order  that 
he  might  become  a  priest.  His  success  against  the  other  claim- 
ants of  the  throne  was  so  great  that  in  the  year  1184  he 
secured  the  homage  of  the  Norwegian  people,  and  was  crowned 
at  Bergen.  He  was  a  very  able  ruler,  but  there  were  so  many 
parties  in  the  state  against  him  that  he  had  no  chance  of 
doing  much  for  the  good  of  the  kingdom,  and  he  died  in  1202, 
worn  out  by  constant  war.  The  clergy,  headed  by  the  Arch- 
bishop Erik  of  Trondhjem,  were  his  worst  foes,  and  as  usual 
the  Danes  were  read)-  to  help  in  keeping  up  strife  in  the 
sister-kingdom,  so  whenever  Sverre's  subjects  rose  against  him, 
they  were  certain  of  aid  from  Denmark,  which  always  gave 
them  a  retreat  in  case  of  need.  Sverre's  only  son,  Hakon  III., 
reigned  no  more  than  two  years,  and  his  sudden  death  at 
Bergen  in  1204,  most  likely  by  poison  said  to  have  been  given 
him  by  his  stepmother,  Margaret,  daughter  of  St.  Erik  of 
Sweden,  opened  the  way  to  new  claimants. 


NOR  WA  Y  IN  EARL  Y  TIMES. 


Then  the  "  Birch  Legs  "  crowned  a  little  child  called 
Guttorm,  a  grandson  of  Sverre,  and  ruled  the  kingdom  in  his 
name  till  his  death  a  few  months  later.  After  that  they  gave 
the  crown  to  Inge  Baardsen,  a  nephew  of  the  great  Sverre, 
who  during  his  thirteen  years'  reign  had  to  contend  with  four 
or  five  rivals,  who  in  turn  laid  claim  to  the  throne,  and  were 
sometimes  able  by  the  help  of  the  Danes  to  drive  out  Inge, 
and  set  themselves  up  in  his  place  for  a  short  time. 

Hakon  IV.,  1217-1263. — On  the  death  of  Inge,  in  1217, 
Hakon,  a  boy  of  thirteen  who  had  been  brought  up  at  his 
court  and  was  said  to  be  a  son  of  Hakon  III.,  was  set  upon 
the  throne  by  the  "  Birch  Legs." 

During  these  times  of  trouble  the  clergy  had  gained  great 
power  in  the  state,  and  taken  upon  themselves  the  sole  right  of 
choosing  the  king,  for  although  according  to  law  the  eldest  son 
was  to  succeed  his  father,  this  was  only  to  be  allowed  in  cases 
where  the  bishops  could  be  certain  that  the  claimant  "  had  not 
fallen  away  from  the  doctrines  of  Christianity  and  the  Church." 
In  1162,  the  crown  of  Norway  had  been  declared  to  be  a  "fief 
of  St.  Olaf,"  and  only  to  be  held  by  the  prince  who  had  re- 
ceived it  at  the  hands  of  the  pope's  chief  servant  in  Norway, 
namely,  the  Archbishop  of  Trondhjem,  and  accordingly  from 
that  time  forth,  the  Norwegian  kings  were  crowned  in  a  church 
with  all  the  ceremonies  usual  in  other  countries  at  royal  coro- 
nations, and  the  simple  forms  of  the  old  northern  courts  were 
quite  done  away  with. 


CHAPTER  XII. 


SV/EDEN    FROM    1250    TO    1400. 

liirger  Jarl,  Father  of  Kings  ;  his  expectations  of  the  Crown — Choice  of 
his  son  Valdemar  in  his  absence — Ivar  Blaa's  conduct — Valdemar's 
"Erik  Course"' — Binder's  anger — Ivar's  retorts — Birger  submits;  his 
rule  in  Sweden  ;  the  laws  he  passed  in  favour  of  women  —  Valdemar's  in- 
capacity— Quarrels  between  brothers — Magnus  seizes  on  Valdemar — The 
reign  of  Magnus;  his  merits  as  a  lawgiver;  his  nickname  Uarnlock — 
New  order  of  nobles  ;  thcUnfrec  and  Free  ;  nobles  and  cavaliers — Three 
sons  of  Magnus — Torkel  Knutsson's  influence  for  good  ;  troubles  after  his 
death  ;  civil  war  ;  King  Birger  throws  his  brothers  in  a  dungeon  and 
starves  them  to  death;  feelings  of  people  against  him  ;  consequences  of 
his  acts — Magnus,  son  of  murdered  Duke  Erik,  made  king  ;  his  minority  ; 
his  vicious  conduct  and  weakness  ;  his  queen  ;  his  son  Erik  killed — 
Hakon  made  king  of  Norway — Friendship  for  Valdemar  Atterdag  of 
Denmark  ;  gives  up  Skaania  and  other  provinces — Hakon  promises  to 
marry  Elizabeth  of  Ilolstein  ;  his  marriage  to  Margaret  of  Denmark  — 
Death  of  Queen  Blanka — Magnus  insults  Elizabeth — Valdemar  promises 
him  help— Magnus  outlaws  twenty-lour  nobles;  what  they  do  :  fate  of 
Magnus — Albert  of  Mecklenburg,  King  of  Sweden  ;  Albert's  reign  ;  his 
weakness  and  wars — lio  Jon.-,son  ;  hi.^  great  power — State  of  kingdom — 
Bo  [ousson's  heirs  invite  Margaret  to  lake  the  crown;  her  conduct 
Albert's  defeat  and  unhapvjy  end  — Margaret's  success  -  -Union  ol  ('.dinar 
—  Erik  of  I'uiiierania  accepted  as  future  king  of  Sweden. 


PART   I. 
THE     FOLKUNGAR     KINGS. 

JSirger,  the  l:atJicr  of  Kings. — THF,  Folkungar  race,  which 
ruled  over  S'.vcden  from  the  time  of  our  Ilenrv  III.  to  the 
close  of  the  rei^n  of  Kdvvard  III.,  numbered  amongst  its 
members  kings  of  ureat  talent.  Hir^er  Jarl,  "  the  father  of 
uinu.->  "  and  the  founder  of  this  fam  Iv'.s  influence  in  the  state, 


SWEDEN  FROM  1250  TO  1400.  157 

although  he  never  wore  the  crown  himself,  may  be  said  to 
have  been  more  of  a  king  than  some  among  his  descendants 
who  bore  the  regal  title.  Birger,  as  we  have  seen  in  a  former 
chapter,  was  absent  from  Sweden  when  his  brother-in-law,  Erik 
Lsespe,  the  last  of  the  Bondar  race  died,  and  when  he  returned 
from  the  crusade  which  he  had  been  carrying  on  in  Finland, 
lie  was  very  angry  to  find  that  the  Swedish  Council  of  State 
had  taken  advantage  of  his  absence  to  choose  his  young  son 
Valdemar  to  be  king.  Some  of  the  Councillors  had  opposed 
Valdemar's  election  on  the  ground  that  as  the  son  of  Birger 
Jarl  he  would  be  completely  under  the  control  of  that  am- 
bitious chieftain,  but  their  objections  had  been  set  aside  by 
Ivar  Blaa,  a  noble  knight,  related  through  his  mother  to  the 
Bondar  family,  who  leading  the  little  Valdemar  into  the 
Council  Chamber,  presented  him  to  his  brother-nobles  as  the 
only  one  able  to  save  them  from  having  Birger  raised  to  be 
king  and  master  of  Sweden.  That  argument  removed  their 
objections  against  Valdemar,  for  knowing  the  character  of 
Birger,  the  Council  foresaw  that  the  Jarl  would  dispute  the 
crown  with  any  stranger,  and  accordingly  they  conducted  the 
youth  in  great  state  to  Upsala,  and  presenting  him  at  the  Mora 
Stone  to  the  people,  secured  for  him  the  homage  of  all  the 
different  orders  of  the  Thing,  and  carried  him  on  his 
"  Erik's  course,"  '  or  royal  progress  before  his  father's  return 
to  Sweden. 

When  on  his  arrival  Birger  learnt  what  had  been  done,  he 
gave  vent  to  threats  of  vengeance  against  the  Council,  and 
tried,  but  without  avail,  to  induce  the  people  to  set  aside 
Valdemar's  election,  on  the  ground  that  it  was  not  according  to 
law,  since  it  had  been  settled  without  his  knowledge  and  con- 
sent as  Jarl  of  Sweden. 

"  Who  was  the  traitor  that  dared  to  elect  a  king  in  my 
absence?"  asked  the  Jarl,  when  he  first  met  the  Councillors  of 
State.  "  I  was  the  man,  Birger  Jarl,"  cried  the  knight  Ivar, 
"and  if  my  choice  does  not  please  you,  we  can  all  see 
now  where  we  could  have  found  a  king  more  to  your  mind  !  " 

1  An  ancient  custom,  which  required  of  a  newly  elected  king  that  he 
should  drive  through  every  province  of  the  kingdom  to  show  himself  and 
receive  the  homage  of  the  people. 


158  SCANDINA  VI AN  HISTOR  Y, 

Birger  was  silent  for  a  moment  on  receiving  this  reply  which 
showed  that  the  Council  saw  he  had  been  disappointed  at  not 
getting  the  crown  for  himself,  and  then  he  asked,  "  Who  would 
you  choose  if  you  set  my  boy  aside  ?  " 

"  We  will  think  about  that,"  answered  Ivar,  "  but  there  is 
no  lack  of  choice.  Sweden  might  find  a  king  to  suit  her  under 
this  cloak  of  mine  !  " 

After  that,  Birger  Jarl  let  well  alone,  and  took  his  place  as 
chief  seneschal  at  the  splendid  coronation  of  his  little  son  in 
1251  at  Linkoping.  From  that  time  till  his  death  in  1266, 
the  Jarl,  although  not  a  king  in  name,  ruled  Sweden  with  a 
vigour  and  prudence  that  very  few  of  the  earlier  kings  had 
shown.  He  kept  the  nobles  in  check,  and  made  them  respect 
the  laws,  encouraged  knightly  training,  and  did  away  with  trial 
by  ordeal ;  and  he  also  won  the  gratitude  of  the  women  by 
the  laws  which  he  caused  to  be  passed  in  their  favour,  and 
which  gave  them  the  right  to  half  as  much  as  their  brothers 
of  the  property  of  their  parents.  Before  Birger's  time  the 
daughters  of  wealthy  men  could  not  claim  any  share  in  their 
fathers'  possessions  as  long  as  they  had  brothers  living ;  for 
as  the  law  put  it,  "where  the  hat  comes  in,  the  cap  goes  out." 
Birger  is  said  either  to  have  founded  the  town  of  Stockholm. 
or  at  any  rate  to  have  fortified  it,  and  raised  it  to  the  rank  of 
an  important  stronghold,  and  thenceforth  it  became  one  of 
the  best  defences  against  the  attacks  of  Finnish  pirates. 

Valdemar,  1250-1279. — As  soon  as  Birger  died,  his  son 
King  Valdemar  began  to  quarrel  with  his  brothers,  Duke 
Magnus  and  Prince  Erik,  to  whom  their  father  had  given 
provinces  some  years  before  his  death.  Valdemar's  evil  con- 
duct in  preferring  his  sister-in-law,  the  lovely  nun  Jutfa,  to  his 
queen  Sofia,1  brought  the  anger  of  the  clergy  upon  him,  and 
in  1274,  he  was  forced  to  send  away  Jutta,  and  by  way  of 
penance  to  make  a  pilgrimage  to  Rome.  During  his  absence, 
Magnus  was  looked  upon  as  king,  but  on  his  return  there 
was  a  meeting  of  the  three  brothers,  and  Valdemar  was  left 
to  rule  as  before. 

Fora  short  time,  things  seemed  to  go  on  more  smoothly,  but 
in  the  next  year  Krik  (flipping,  King  of  Denmark,  gave  men 
1  Daui'hters  of  the  Danish  kiii'%  Krik  Plovneii''. 


SWEDEN  FROM  1250  TO  1400.  159 

and  money  to  the  princes  to  rise  against  Valdemar,  who  was 
surprised  with  his  queen  and  his  son  while  they  were  resting  in 
a  wood,  and  barely  escaped  from  the  pursuit  of  his  brothers. 
After  staying  a  short  time  in  Norway,  where  he  had  taken 
refuge,  he  ventured  to  come  back  to  Sweden,  but  he  was  soon 
taken  and  shut  up  by  Duke  Magnus,  who  forced  him  to 
renounce  the  crown  of  Sweden  and  content  himself  with  the 
province  of  East  Gothland.  Valdemar  soon  afterwards  went 
over  to  Denmark,  but  on  his  return  to  Sweden  in  1288,  he  was 
seized  by  order  of  his  brother,  and  kept  under  mild  restraint 
in  the  castle  of  Nykoping  until  his  death,  which  took  place  in 
1302.  His  only  son,  Prince  Erik,  was  then  released  from  the 
prison  in  which  he  had  long  been  kept,  and  spent  the  rest  of 
his  life  in  the  service  of  the  Swedish  kings  without  making 
any  attempt  to  gain  the  crown  for  himself. 

Magnus,  1279-1290. — In  the  meanwhile,  Magnus,  who  had 
been  crowned  King  of  the  Svea  and  Gauta,  in  1279,  proved 
himself  an  able  ruler.  For  some  years,  he  had  a  hard  task  in 
putting  down  all  the  revolts  which  were  stirred  up  by  his  own 
wealthy  and  unruly  kinsmen  of  the  Folkungar  family,  but  by 
his  firmness  he  succeeded  in  crushing  their  power,  and  then 
he  set  to  work  to  complete  the  task  which  his  father  Birger 
had  begun  in  making  the  laws  more  just  towards  the  poor. 
He  owed  his  name  "  Ladu-laas"  Barn-lock,  to  a  law  which  he 
caused  to  be  passed  in  favour  of  the  peasants,  and  which 
ordered  that  travellers  of  noble  birth  should  pay  like  other 
persons  for  the  straw  and  corn  that  they  used  on  their  journey- 
ing from  place  to  place.  "  No  Roman  emperor  could  wish 
himself  a  nobler  name  than  Ladu-laas"  says  the  writer  of  the 
Old  Swedish  Chronicle,  "  and  very  few  could  have  laid  claim  to 
it,  for  the  name  of  '  Ladu-Brott]  Barn-breaker,  would  suit 
most  rulers  much  better." 

The  reign  of  Magnus  Ladulaas  marks  a  great  crisis  in  the 
history  of  Sweden,  for  he  first  settled  bylaw  the  kind  of  service 
to  the  crown  which  made  men  rank  as  f raise,  free,  instead  of 
being  classed  as  Ofriilse,  not  free.  The  difference  between 
the  two  classes  was  merely  in  regard  to  freedom  from  taxes, 
and  had  nothing  to  do  with  freedom  of  person  or  property, 
which  might  exist  as  fully  amongst  the  Of  raises  amongst  the 


160  SCANDINA  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 

Fralse,  free.  But  Magnus,  wlio  was  very  anxious  to  augment 
the  power  of  the  crown,  granted  freedom  from  taxation  to  all 
who  would  serve  with  horses  and  men  against  the  enemies  of 
the  king,  and  thus  established  a  kind  of  nobility  by  service, 
known  by  the  name  of  ntss-tjenst,  and  this  in  the  course  of 
time  came  in  Sweden  to  be  an  order  of  knights  or  cavalier- 
nobles,  who  were  expected  to  be  foremost  in  the  field  when 
the  king  was  at  war,  and  nearest  his  person  as  office-bearers  at 
his  court  in  times  of  peace.1 

King  Magnus  kept  a  brilliant  court,  and  encouraged  the 
nobles  in  following  all  the  practices  of  knighthood  which  were 
common  in  the  Southern  Countries  of  Europe.  He  was  also 
one  of  the  best  supporters  that  the  church  and  clergy  had  ever 
had  among  the  Swedish  kings,  and  in  the  course  of  his  reign 
he  caused  five  monasteries  to  be  founded,  and  gave  large  sums 
to  many  of  the  churches  in  his  kingdom.  At  his  death  in  1290, 
his  body,  by  his  own  desire,  was  placed  in  the  Franciscan 
monastery,  which  he  had  founded  in  Stockholm,  "  in  the  hope," 
as  he  said  in  his  will,  "  that  his  memory  might  not  pass  away 
with  the  sound  of  his  funeral  bells." 


PART  II. 

THE    THREE     UNFRIENDLY     BROTHERS. 

Birgcr,  1290-1319. — Magnus  left  three  sons,  Birger,  Erik 
and  Valdcmar,  whose  unhappy  quarrels  brought  misery  and 
death  upon  themselves  and  many  of  their  nearest  kindred 
and  friends.  Birger  was  crowned  king  when  only  nine  years 
of  age,  and  as  long  as  his  father's  friend,  the  Marschal 
Torkel  Knutsson,  governed  for  him,  all  went  well  in  Sweden. 
The  Finns  were  again  brought  under  subjection  to  the  Swedish 
crown,  after  having  fallen  away  from  the  Christian  religion  ;  a 
new  and  complete  code  of  laws  was  laid  before  the  people  at 
the  Great  Thing  of  1295,  and  approved  of  by  them  ;  and  many 
things  were  done  during  this  period  for  the  good  of  the  country. 


SWEDEN  FROM  1250   TO  1400.  161 

But  as  soon  as  Birger  began  to  reign  by  himself  all  went  wrong. 
After  long  quarrels  with  his  brothers,  he  made  friends  with 
them,  and  at  length  in  1306,  yielded  to  their  wishes  that  he 
should  allow  them  to  have  the  faithful  Torkel  Knutsson  tried 
for  treason,  and  put  to  death.  As  soon  as  Erik  and  Vaklemar 
had  thus  freed  themselves  from  the  restraint  of  the  Marschal's 
influence  in  the  state,  they  seized  upon  the  person  of  the 
king  and  kept  him  shut  up  till  he  had  signed  a  treaty  by  which 
they  were  left  to  govern  their  provinces  as  if  they  were  free 
sovereigns.  Some  years,  now  passed  in  seeming  peace,  but  the 
dukes  joined  with  the  kings  of  Norway  and  Denmark  against 
their  brother,  and  they  and  their  friends  laid  waste  his  king- 
dom in  every  part,  until  the  unhappy  peasants  were  scarcely 
able  to  keep  corn  enough  to  feed  themselves,  and  whole  dis- 
tricts were  stripped  of  everything  that  could  serve  for  food  for 
men  or  cattle. 

Then  it  was  that  King  Birger,  by  the  advice,  it  is  said,  of 
his  Danish  queen,  Marta,  daughter  of  Erik  Clipping  of  Den- 
mark, made  up  his  mind  to  revenge  himself  upon  his  brothers. 
In  the  autumn  of  the  year  1317,  when  Edward  II.  had  been 
ten  years  King  of  England,  the  King  and  Queen  of  Sweden 
were  keeping  their  court  at  the  castle  of  Nykoping,  and 
having  learnt  that  Duke  Valdemar  was  on  his  way  from  Oeland 
to  Stockholm,  they  invited  him  and  his  brother  Duke  Erik,  to 
spend  the  Yule-tide  with  them.  The  two  princes  came,  and 
were  welcomed  with  every  appearance  of  friendship  by  the 
king,  who  expressed  his  regret  that  the  smallness  of  the  castle 
would  not  allow  of  their  servants  being  housed  with  them.  But 
as  soon  as  the  men  had  left  to  take  up  their  quarters  in  the  town, 
the  bridges  were  raised  and  the  gates  locked,  and  when  the 
king  learnt  that  his  brothers  were  asleep,  he  gave  orders  to 
have  them  chained,  andt  hrown  into  the  lowest  dungeon  of  the 
castle.  Two  of  the  knights  to  whom  Birger  had  committed 
this  charge  showed  unwillingness  to  obey  him ;  but  when 
they  were  put  into  irons  on  the  spot,  no  one  else  attempted 
to  evade  his  orders.  The  king  looked  on  while  his  brothers 
were  being  chained  to  rings  fastened  for  the  purpose  to  the 
wall  of  the  dungeon,  and  then,  wild  with  excitement,  he 

M 


162  SCANDINA  VIAN  HISTOR  Y. 

rushed  up  to  the  queen,  and  cried  out  :  "  Now  all  will  be  right ! 
At  last  I  have  Sweden  in  my  own  hands  !  "• 

Slow  Deafh  of  Princes. — For  four  months  the  prisoners  were 
left  in  their  wretched  prison,  while  King  Birger  and  Queen 
Marta  lived  in  the  same  building,  and  refused  in  any  way  to 
lessen  the  misery  of  their  captives.  At  length  the  friends  and 
followers  of  the  prisoners  clamoured  so  loudly  for  their  release, 
and  threatened  the  life  of  the  king  so  fiercely,  that  Birger 
found  it  would  not  be  possible  for  him  to  remain  longer  at 
Nykoping.  He  and  the  queen  then  quitted  the  castle,  after 
they  had  seen  the  prison  tower  made  fast,  and  the  keys  thrown 
into  the  water,  leaving  the  princes  to  die  of  hunger.  The  sad 
fate  of  the  brothers  became  a  favourite  subject  for  the  popular 
tales  and  songs  in  which  the  northern  nations  in  that  age  took 
such  great  delight,  and  in  the  Swedish  Rhyming  Chronicle  it  is 
related  that  Duke  Erik,  who  had  been  sharply  wounded  when 
put  into  the  dungeon,  lived  only  three  days  after  the  door  of 
his  prison  was  locked  for  the  last  time,  while  Valdernar  lingered 
a  full  week  longer  than  his  brother. 

The  news  of  Birger's  treatment  of  the  princes  raised  all 
Sweden  against  him.  Stockholm  closed  its  gates  when  he 
drew  near,  and  the  people  of  Nykoping  refused  to  let  him 
enter  the  castle,  and  threatened  to  take  his  life  unless  he  pro- 
duced his  brothers.  Then  the  captain  of  the  fort  had  the 
dead  bodies  of  the  princes  wrapped  in  robes  of  golden  tissue, 
and  laid  on  biers  outside  the  castle-gates,  that  the  people  might 
see  that  those  for  whom  they  had  taken  up  arms  were  no 
longer  living.  At  the  sight  of  their  wounded  starved  bodies 
the  rage  and  grief  of  the  besiegers  knew  no  bounds  ;  and, 
rushing  forward,  they  attacked  the  castle  of  Nykoping,  and 
razed  it  to  the  ground. 

Birger  for  a  time  had  help  from  Denmark,  where  his  son 
Magnus  had  been  kept  in  safety  by  his  brother-in-law,  King 
Erik  Menved ;  but  at  length  he  gave  up  the  attempt  to 
struggle  against  his  people,  and  fled  in  1319  with  his  queen 
and  daughter  to  the  Danish  Court.  In  the  following  year 
young  Magnus  was  taken  by  his  father's  foes,  and  in  spite  of 
the  pledges  of  safety  given  him  if  he  would  lay  down  his  arms 
and  disband  his  Danish  soldiers,  he  was  publicly  beheaded  at 


SWEDEN  FROM  uyt  TO  1400.  163 


Stockholm.  The  death  of  this  son,  a  brave  and  promising 
youth,  caused  much  sorrow  to  King  Birger,  who  died  in  the 
following  year,  bowed  down  by  grief,  and  was  buried  at 
Ringsted  Abbey,  which  contains  the  graves  of  many  of  the 
early  Danish  kings. 


PART  III. 
HALF    A     CENTURY     OF    TROUBLES. 

Magnus  Smek,  1319. — In  Sweden  in  the  meanwhile  the 
people  were  gathering  loyally  round  the  gallant  knight,  Mats 
Ketilmundsson,  who  on  Midsummer's  Day,  1319,  had  ap- 
peared before  the  assembly  of  the  Thing  at  Upsala,  and  hold- 
ing up  in  his  arms  Duke  Erik's  little  son  Magnus,  a  child 
scarcely  three  years  of  age,  had  begged  the  people  to  receive 
him  as  their  king.  This  they  pledged  themselves  they  would 
do,  and  the  next  year  a  number  of  the  highest  members  of  the 
Thing  went  into  Norway  to  demand  the  homage  of  that  king- 
dom for  their  little  prince,  who  through  his  mother,  Ingeborg, 
daughter  of  Hakon  V.,  was  the  nearest  heir  to  the  Norwegian 
crown,  which  his  grandfather,  the  late  King  Hakon,  had 
caused  to  be  settled  upon  the  children  of  his  daughter. 

The  people  of  Norway  were  well  pleased  to  receive  Magnus 
as  their  king,  and  a  Council  of  State  was  chosen  there  as 
well  as  in  Sweden  to  govern  until  the  young  king  grew  to  be 
a  man.  This  was  a  happy  time  for  both  kingdoms,  and  there 
was  great  rejoicing  in  Sweden  when,  in  the  year  1332,  repre- 
sentatives came  from  the  provinces  of  Skaania,  Halland,  and 
Bleking, — which  had  been  pawned  by  Erik  Menved  and  the 
weak  Christopher  II.  of  Denmark  to  the  Swedish  Council  of 
State, — and  offering  to  take  oaths  of  allegiance  to  King  Magnus 
on  behalf  of  themselves  and  their  countrymen,  prayed  to  be 
joined  with  the  Swedish  kingdom.  But  when  Magnus  began 
to  rule  for  himself  after  the  death  of  his  truef  riend  and  adviser, 
Mats  Ketilmundsson,  in  1336,  there  was  an  end  of  the  pro- 
sperity of  the  kingdom  and  everything  seemed  to  go  wrong,  for 
he  and  his  queen,  Blanka  of  Namur,  showed  such  a  taste  for 

M  2 


1 64  SC AND  IN  A  VIA  .V  HIS  TOR  ) '. 

pleasure,  and  such  a  liking  for  bad  favourites,  that  the  people 
in  both  countries  soon  lost  all  their  love  and  respect  for 
them.1 

Things  went  on  from  bad  to  worse  until  at  last,  in  the  year 
1350,  the  king's  elder  son,  Prince  Erik,  put  himself  at  the 
head  of  a  large  army  of  the  best  men  in  the  kingdom  of 
Sweden,  anil  demanded  that  his  parents  should  send  away 
their  unworthy  favourite,  Bengl  Algotsson.  At  the  same  time 
the  Norwegians  demanded  to  have  Hakon,  the  second  son  of 
King  Magnus,  to  govern  them;  and  thus  the  people  in  both  king- 
doms showed  how  glad  they  would  be  to  get  rid  of  their  weak 
king.  The  sudden  death  of  Prince  Erik  caused  very  great 
sorrow  amongst  the  Swedes,  who  thought  that  he  had  died  by 
poison  given  to  him  by  his  mother,  Queen  Blanka.  Magnus 
in  the  meanwhile  still  further  enraged  his  subjects  by  the 
friendship  he  showed  towards  King  Valdemar  Atterdag  of 
Denmark,  who  had  had  the  craft  to  regain  the  provinces  of 
Skaania,  Halland,  and  Bleking  in  return  for  a  promise  of 
help  against  the  Swedish  Council  of  State,  and  thus  Sweden 
lost  those  valuable  districts,  which  the  people  had  hoped 
would  remain  for  ever  united  with  the  Swedish  crown  lands. 
When  it  was  known  that  Valdemar  had  induced  Magnus 
to  agree  to  a  marriage  between  his  little  daughter  Margaret 
and  Hakon,  heir  to  Norway  and  Sweden,  the  Council  of 
State  did  their  best  to  prevent  it,  and  at  first  it  seemed  as  if 
the  plans  of  the  Danish  king  would  all  be  thwarted,  for  by 
their  advice,  young  King  Hakon  withdrew  his  consent  to  marry 
Margaret,  and  offered  to  take  Elizabeth  of  Holstein,  as  his 
people  wished,  to  be  his  queen.  But  soon  after  this  marriage 
appeared  to  be  settled,  everything  was  again  upset,  and  Hakon 
became  reconciled  to  his  mother  and  his  father,  and  went  to 
Copenhagen  to  marry  the  little  Princess  Margaret.  In  the 
meanwhile,  as  we  have  seen  in  a  former  chapter,  poor  Eliza- 
beth, who  had  set  sail  for  Sweden,  lost  both  husband  and 
freedom  ;  for  having  been  driven  by  stress  of  weather  into 
a  Danish  port,  she  was  detained  there,  on  some  pretence  or 
other,  for  a  long  time  by  King  Valdemar,  and  at  last  she 

1  The  nickname  Snick  was  given  to  Magnus  to  betoken  his  low  vicious 
habits. 


SWEDEN  FROM  1250  TO  1400.  165 


had  to  send  for  help  to  her  brothers  before  she  could  regain 
her  liberty.  After  the  marriage  of  his  son  and  the  little 
Danish  princess  King  Magnus,  thinking  he  might  now  take  his 
own  way,  ordered  twenty-four  of  the  first  nobles  of  Sweden, 
against  whom  he  had  some  ill-will,  to  leave  the  kingdom 
without  delay,  and  not  return  till  he  gave  them  permission, 
on  pain  of  being  outlawed. 

The  outlawed  nobles  made  haste  to  leave  Sweden,  but  it  was 
only  to  betake  themselves  to  the  court  of  Mecklenburg,  where 
they  offered  the  Swedish  crown  to  Albert,  Count  of  Mecklen- 
burg, son  of  King  Magnus's  only  sister  Euphemia.  The  count 
accepted  their  offer  with  joy,  and  in  the  autumn  of  the  same 
year,  1363,  he  landed  in  Sweden,  together  with  the  twenty-four 
banished  nobles,  and  was  at  once  chosen  king  by  the  Great 
Thing,  which  at  the  same  time  declared  that  Magnus  and  Hakon 
had  both  forfeited  the  allegiance  of  the  people  on  account  of 
their  want  of  good  faith  to  their  own  subjects,  and  their  friendly 
conduct  to  the  enemies  of  the  kingdom.  In  a  battle  fought 
between  the  rival  kings  at  Enkoping  in  1365,  Magnus  was 
taken  captive,  and  not  again  set  free  till  1371,  when  by  a 
treaty  between  Albert  of  Sweden  and  Hakon  of  Norway,  it  was 
settled  that  he  might  enjoy  certain  revenues  and  remain  with 
his  son,  on  condition  that  he  made  no  attempt  to  regain  the 
Swedish  crown.  His  death  in  the  year  1374  freed  Albert  of 
Mecklenburg  from  the  chief  cause  of  disturbance  in  his  new 
possessions,  for  King  Hakon  never  showed  any  wish  to  get 
back  the  Swedish  crown  for  himself. 


PART  IV. 
SWEDEN     UNDER     FOREIGN     RULE. 

Albert,  1363-1389. — Albert  had  been  chosen  by  the  nobles 
of  Sweden  under  the  idea  that  he  would  be  a  mere  puppet  in 
their  hands,  but  they  found  that  his  obstinacy  made  him  less 
easy  to  manage  than  they  had  supposed  ;  and  their  anger  was 
soon  turned  against  the  crowd  of  Germans  who  had  followed 
him  into  Sweden,  and  to  whom  he  had  given  all  the  offices  of 


1 66  SCA  NDINA  VI AN  HIS  TOR  Y. 

state  that  he  could  dispose  of.  Hatred  of  the  foreigners  made 
many  of  the  knights  and  lesser  nobles  join  the  Bondar  in  an 
attempt  to  bring  back  King  Magnus,  and  they  ah  united  to- 
gether in  an  appeal  to  the  Council  of  State,  praying  them  to 
relieve  the  nation  of  their  heavy  burdens.  But  the  great  nobles 
cared  very  little  about  the  troubles  of  the  poorer  people,  and 
so  in  spite  of  their  own  causes  of  discontent  against  the  king, 
they  did  nothing  to  help  their  countrymen.  What  made 
matters  worse  was  that  the  Hansers  gave  their  support  to  the 
German  king,  and  in  return  for  great  privileges  in  their  trade, 
guarded  the  shores  of  Sweden  for  him  and  kept  him  free  from 
all  attacks  by  sea. 

Bo  Jonsson  rules. — After  a  time,  however,  the  Council  of 
State  took  offence  at  Albert's  conduct,  and  they  made  him 
understand  that,  if  he  wished  to  keep  the  crown  of  Sweden,  he 
must  not  put  his  German  friends  into  the  command  of  the 
royal  fortresses,  or  attempt  to  raise  them  above  the  Swedish 
nobles  ;  indeed,  they  even  threatened  to  depose  him  at  once  if 
he  did  not  obey  their  directions.  Then  King  Albert  to  save 
himself,  made  choice  in  1371  of  Bo  Jonsson,  the  richest  noble 
in  Sweden,  to  be  his  "  all  powerful  Jfclpcr"  as  he  called  it, 
and  to  rule  for  him  "  over  his  court,  his  house,  his  lands,  his 
officers,  and  servants,  to  choose  the  members  of  the  Council 
of  State  when  any  should  be  removed  by  death,  and  in  all 
things  to  enjoy  the  same  power  as  himself."  From  that  time 
till  his  death,  in  1385,  Bo  Jonsson  "ruled  the  land  with  a 
glance  of  his  eye,"  as  the  Rhyming  Chronicle  of  those  times 
expresses  it ;  but  nothing  could  exceed  the  licence  of  the 
nobles  at  this  period,  for  they  and  the  knights  and  bishops 
carried  fin  their  private  quarrels  without  any  regard  to  the 
laws.  P.o  Jonsson  himself  on  one  occasion  followed  his  foe, 
the  knight  Karl  Xil.sson,  into  the  church  of  the  Franciscans 
at  Stockholm,  and  hacked  him  to  pieces  before  the  high  altar. 
Where  the  great  men  of  the  land  could  do  such  deeds  without 
being  punished  for  them,  the  poorer  classes  had  little  chance 
of  meeting  with  right  and  justice. 

When  Bo  Jonsson  died,  King  Albert  thought  that  there  was 
a  good  chance  for  him  to  free  himself  from  the  power  of  the 
nobles,  but  the  latter  wore  not  su  easily  put  down,  and  aftei  a 


SWEDEN  FROM  1230  TO  1400.  167 

fierce  civil  war  and  much  trouble  the  heirs  of  Bo  Jonsson,  to 
whom  he  had  left  by  will  all  his  power  in  the  state,  as  if  it 
were  his  own  to  dispose  of,  made  an  offer  of  the  throne  to 
Queen  Margaret  of  Denmark  and  Norway. 

This  act  was  the  signal  for  new  wars  and  fresh  troubles  of 
every  kind.  The  Hansers  and  some  of  the  German  princes 
sent  ships  and  troops  to  Sweden  to  help  King  Albert,  and  a 
small  number  of  Swedes  still  held  to  him,  but  this  they  did 
less  from  regard  for  his  person,  than  from  the  hatred  which 
they  bore  to  Denmark,  and  the  fear  they  had  of  having  a 
Danish  ruler  over  them.  Between  pirates  and  armed  foes 
threatening  the  coasts,  and  war  on  land,  with  bad  crops, 
famine  and  disease  in  all  parts  of  the  kingdom,  few  nations 
could  have  been  in  a  worse  state  than  the  Swedes  at  that 
time. 

Margaret  in  Sweden. — Margaret  proved  a  far  more  dangerous 
foe  to  King  Albert  than  any  he  had  ever  had  to  deal  with,  as 
he  found  to  his  cost,  in  spite  of  his  folly  in  despising  her. 
As  soon  as  she  had  formally  accepted  the  offer  of  the  Swedish 
crown  made  to  her  by  Bo  Jonsson's  heirs  and  some  of  their 
friends,  she  lost  no  time  in  sending  an  army  into  Sweden, 
which  gave  Albert's  German  troops  battle  at  Falk oping  and 
defeated  them  ;  after  which  she  kept  Albert  and  his  son  shut 
up  in  prison  till  the  year  1395.  When  he  was  set  free,  King 
Albert  found  he  could  no  longer  stay  in  Sweden,  and  he  then 
returned  to  his  old  home  in  Mecklenburg,  where  he  spent  the 
rest  of  his  days,  in  neglect  and  want,  and  died,  it  is  said,  in 
the  same  year  as  Queen  Margaret.  As  his  only  son  had  lost  his 
life  in  1397,  there  was  no  one  of  the  family  left  to  dispute  the 
claims  of  Margaret's  adopted  son  and  heir,  Erik  of  Pom  crania, 
to  be  king  of  Sweden  after  her. 

Queen  Margaret  ruled  the  Swedish  kingdom  so  ably,  and 
managed  the  nobles  so  cleverly,  that  none  of  them  seemed  to 
have  thought  of  going  against  her  wishes,  although  she  called 
upon  them  to  pay  taxes,  and  to  give  back  the  castles  and  lands 
which  they  held  in  pawn,  and  to  do  many  other  things  which 
former  kings  of  Sweden  had  never  asked  of  their  subjects 
without  getting  themselves  into  trouble,  and  running  the  risk 
of  losing  the  crown.  Margaret  even  persuaded  the  Swedes  in 


1 68  SCANDINA  VI AN  HIS  TOR  Y. 

1396 — although  much  against  their  will — to  crown  her  nephew 
Erik,  and  to  do  homage  to  him  as  joint  king  with  herself.  Not 
content  with  this,  she  induced  them  in  the  following  year  to 
consent  to  the  union  of  the  kingdom  of  Sweden  with  Norway 
and  Denmark  under  one  ruler.  But  although  as  long  as  she 
lived  she  kept  the  Swedish  people  quiet,  and  content  to  have  a 
foreign  ruler  over  them,  it  was  very  different  when  she  was  no 
longer  at  hand  to  maintain  peace  amongst  them. 


CHAPTER    XIII. 


NORWAY     FROM     I2iy     TO     1400, 

Hakon  IV. ;  his  character  ;  his  wars — Skule  Baardsson;  his  defeat  and  death 
— Hakon's  reputation  among  foreign  princes — Iceland  ;  its  condition  ; 
the  causes  of  its  downfall — -Snorre  Sturlasson  murdered — Iceland  sub- 
dued— Greenland — Invasion  of  Scotland  ;  defeat  at  Largs — Ilakon  dies 
— Magnus,  the  Law-betterer  ;  his  reign — Erik  Priest-hater — Troubles — • 
Maid  of  Norway — Hakon  V. ;  his  successor — Magnus  Smek  of  Sweden 
— Black  Death — The  Partridge — Olaf  succeeds  Hakon  VI. — Margaret's 
Regency — Olafs  death — Erik  of  Pomerania — Margaret's  popularity — 
Olafs  funeral ;  his  heart  carried  to  Denmark — Albert's  pretensions- 
Things  of  Denmark  choose  Margaret  as  their  "  Master  "  and  sole  Ruler 
— Norway  makes  choice  of  her  for  its  Queen  ;  her  adoption  of  Erik  ; 
her  love  for  him — Opinion  of  foreigners — Liibeck  Chronicle — Troubles 
in  Sweden — Albert's  hatred  of  her  ;  she  accepts  the  Crown  of  Sweden  ; 
defeats  Albert ;  his  imprisonment  and  humiliation  ;  put  on  the  rack — 
Stockholm  resists  the  Queen — The  Vitalien — Margaret's  success — Albert 
ransomed — Women  of  Mecklenburg —  Queen  and  young  Erik  enter 
Stockholm — Erik  crowned — Act  of  Union  of  Calmar — Erik's  incapacity  ; 
his  character — Execution  of  Brodersen— Troubled  times  ;  wars  with 
Holstein  ;  causes  of  war — Regent-Countess — Margaret's  meeting  with 
the  Countess — Margaret's  death. 


PART  I. 
NORWAY'S    BEST    TIME. 

Hakon  IV.,  1217-1262. — Hakon  IV.  is  the  only  king  of 
Norway  who  made  himself  much  known  or  respected  in  his 
own  times  beyond  the  limits  of  the  Scandinavian  lands.  But 
he  was  no  ordinary  man,  and  from  the  moment  when  in  1217, 
at  the  age  of  thirteen,  he  was  chosen  by  the  party  of  the 


1 70  SCA  NDIKA  VI AN  HIS  TOR  Y. 

"  Birch  Legs"  to  be  king,  till  his  death  in  1262,  while  engaged 
in  hostilities  with  the  Scottish  King  Alexander  III.,  he  never 
relaxed  his  efforts  to  extend  and  secure  the  power  of  the  crown. 
In  his  youth  he  defeated  one  hostile  faction  after  the  other, 
and  when  at  length  he  found  that  Skule  Baardsson,  who  was  his 
father-in-law  and  the  brother  of  his  predecessor,  Inge  Baardsson, 
aimed  at  nothing  short  of  equal  power  with  himself  in  the 
state,  he  turned  his  arms  with  success  against  him  also.  In 
the  early  part  of  his  reign,  Hakon  had  derived  great  help  from 
Skule,  and  after  marrying  his  daughter  Margrete,  he  gave  proof 
of  his  gratitude  and  affection  for  his  old  friend  by  raising  him 
to  the  rank  of  Jarl  and  Duke  of  Norway,  and  entrusting  one- 
third  of  the  kingdom  to  him  to  govern  in  his  name.  Not 
content  with  these  honours,  Skule  in  1240  caused  himself  to 
be  proclaimed  king,  and  advanced  on  Trondhjem  at  the  head 
of  his  partizans,  among  whom  were  many  chieftains  of  great 
power  ;  but  before  he  could  reach  the  Norwegian  capital  he 
was  met  by  Hakon  at  Oslo,  where  the  rebel  army  was  com- 
pletely routed,  and  he  himself  forced  to  take  refuge  within  the 
walls  of  a  monastery. 

Skule's  death  by  violence  soon  after  his  defeat  at  Oslo 
secured  to  Norway  a  greater  degree  of  peace  than  it  had 
known  for  a  hundred  years.  At  the  same  time  Hakon  showed 
great  ability  in  restoiing  order  to  his  kingdom,  while  his  fame 
for  valour  and  piety  spread  to  distant  lands,  and  so  strongly 
excited  the  admiration  of  foreign  princes,  that  Louis  IX.  of 
France  (known  as  the  Saint)  sent  a  special  embassy  to  Nor- 
way to  entreat  his  help  in  a  crusade,  and  the  pope  proposed 
that  he  should  extend  his  reputation  by  taking  arms  against 
the  emperor,  Frederick  II.  JJut  Hakon  was  wise  enough  to 
escape  entering  into  distant  conflicts  which  did  not  concern 
him,  and  had  also  the  tact  to  avoid  giving  offence  by  his  re- 
fusal. The  king  had,  in  fact,  objects  in  view  much  nearer 
home,  for  he  had  long  been  anxious  to  reduce  Iceland  to  the 
condition  of  a  mere  province  of  Norway,  and  to  put  an  end 
to  the  independence  of  that  colony,  which  seemed  always  ready 
to  give  a  welcome  to  everyone  wishing  to  escape  from  the  laws 
of  the  mother-country. 

Iceland  ceases  to  be  free. — The  Icelanders  had  enjoyed   their 


NORWAY  FROM  1217  TO  1400.  171 

freedom  since  the  clays  of  Harald  Haarfaager,  when  the  island 
was  first  settled,  and  they  had  continued  to  live  under  equal 
and  just  laws,  which  made  provision  for  the  sick,  aged,  and 
suffering,  and  appeared  in  every  way  suited  to  secure  personal 
freedom,  and  maintain  the  rights  of  every  individual  in  the 
state.  But  unfortunately  the  jealousies  and  rivalries  of  the 
great  families  of  the  island,  after  gradually  weakening  their 
own  power  and  embroiling  all  classes  in  strife,  ended  in 
destroying  the  independence  of  the  republic,  and  reducing 
Iceland  to  the  rank  of  a  mere  province  of  Norway.  This 
event  was  mainly  due  to  the  ambition  of  the  powerful  family 
of  the  Sturlas,  the  chief  of  whom,  Snorre  Sturlasson,  who  was 
at  the  head  of  public  affairs  in  Iceland,  had  raised  such  a 
host  of  enemies  around  him  by  his  arrogant  conduct,  that 
Hakon  found  no  difficulty  in  stirring  up  a  revolt  against  him. 
After  long  wars,  Snorre  was  murdered  in  his  own  house  in 
1241  by  his  son-in-law,  Gissur,  and  the  Icelanders  were  a  few 
years  later  brought  completely  under  the  power  of  the  Nor- 
wegian crown. 

His  success  in  this  matter,  and  in  his  attempts  to  unite 
the  colony  of  Greenland  with  the  mother-county,  encouraged 
Hakon  in  the  hope  that  he  might  recover  the  lands  which 
the  Norwegians  at  one  time  held  in  Scotland  ;  and  towards  the 
close  of  his  reign  he  invaded  the  Scottish  kingdom  with  a 
powerful  fleet.  The  accounts  given  of  this  event  by  the  Scotch 
and  Norwegian  chroniclers  vary  so  much  that  it  is  not  very 
easy  to  make  them  agree.  It  seems,  however,  to  be  beyond 
dispute  that  King  Alexander  III.  of  Scotland  surprised  the 
Norwegians  while  they  were  landing  on  the  coast  of  Ayr ;  and 
in  a  battle  fought  at  Largs,  about  1261,  so  thoroughly  defeated 
them  that  the  small  remnant  left  were  glad  to  take  to  their 
ships,  and  sail  in  all  haste  to  the  Orkneys.  There  Hakon  was 
seized  with  illness,  and  after  spending  the  winter  in  much 
suffering,  he  died  in  the  spring  of  the  year  1262  at  Kirk- 
wall.  His  son  Magnus,  according  to  the  Norwegian  account, 
sold  the  Hebrides  to  Alexander  of  Scotland  for  a  large  sum  of 
money ;  but  according  to  the  Scotch  report  of  these  events, 
Magnus  of  Norway  was  forced  to  renounce  all  claims  to  the 
islands  without  receiving  any  money  in  return. 


1 72  SCA  NDINA  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 

Whatever  the  state  of  the  case  might  have  been,  we  know  at  all 
events  that  Magnus  and  Alexander  continued  to  be  good  friends 
as  long  as  they  lived,  and  that  the  latter  gave  his  daughter  in 
marriage  to  Erik,  the  eldest  son  and  successor  of  Magnus  of 
Norway.  Magnus,  who  reigned  over  Norway  from  1262  to 
1280,  was  a  good  and  able  ruler,  who  gained  for  himself  the 
honourable  name  of  Laga-bw.tcr,  or  "  Law-betterer,"  in  return 
for  the  care  which  he  took  to  collect  and  settle  the  best  laws 
of  the  land,  and  to  do  away  with  those  older  laws  which  had 
become  useless  in  the  course  of  time. 


TART   II. 

THE    LAST    OF  THE    HAKONS. 

Erik  Priest-hater,  1280—1299. —  Erik,  known  as  Fraste- 
Jiader,  or  the  "priest-hater,"  ruled  from  1280  to  1299.  Al- 
though neither  a  bad  man  nor  a  harsh  king,  he  did  not  succeed 
in  gaining  the  love  of  his  people,  and  was  moreover  always  at 
war  either  with  the  Danes,  on  account  of  his  mother  Queen 
Ingeborg's  dowry  which  had  never  been  paid,  or  with  the 
Scotch  on  account  of  the  heritage  of  his  daughter,  Margrete. 
Then  he  also  had  disputes  with  the  Hansers,  whose  trading 
rights  he  tried  to  curtail,  and  with  his  clergy,  whose  freedom 
from  paying  taxes  he  would  not  admit.  Between  all  these 
causes  of  difference  Erik  had  a  troubled  reign,  but  the  worst 
of  all  his  misfortunes  was  the  death  of  his  daughter  Margrete, 
called  by  the  Scotch  the  "  Maid  of  Norway."  The  little 
princess  who  was  heiress  to  the  crowns  of  Scotland  and 
Norway  died  at  sea,  while  on  her  way  in  a  well-guarded  ship 
to  claim  the  Scottish  throne  on  the  death  of  her  maternal 
grandfather,  Alexander  III.  This  last  trouble  weighed  heavily 
upon  lirik,  who  never  again  attempted  in  any  way  to  secure 
influence  for  himself  or  his  family  in  Scotland. 

Hakon  V.,  1299  — 1319.— On  Erik's  death  in  1299,  without 
leaving  any  sons,  his  only  brother  Hakon,  who  had  governed 
Southern  Norway  with  the  title  of  duke  during  his  brother's 
reign,  became  king.  Hakon  V.  was  a  good  ruler,  and  his 


NOR  WA  Y  FR  OM  1 2 1 7  TO  1 400.  173 

subjects,  who  had  much  love  for  him,  were  glad  to  agree  to  his 
wish  of  letting  the  crown  be  settled  on  the  children  of  his 
daughters,  as  he  had  no  sons.  Thus  it  came  to  pass  that  at 
his  death  in  1319  the  people  of  Norway  willingly  received  as 
their  king  the  little  Magnus  of  Sweden,  son  of  King  Hakon's 
daughter,  Ingeborg,  by  her  marriage  with  Erik,  Duke  of  Soder- 
manland,  who,  as  we  have  seen  in  Chapter  XII.,  was  left  to 
die  of  hunger  by  his  brother,  King  Birger  of  Sweden.  Long 
after  the  Swedes  had  grown  tired  of  Magnus  on  account  of 
his  weak  love  for  his  queen  Blanka  of  Namur  and  his  many 
favourites,  the  Norwegians  continued  to  prove  their  respect 
and  regard  for  this  king,  who  was  always  known  in  Norway  as 
the  "Good  Magnus."  When  at  last,  in  1350,  King  Magnus 
gave  up  the  Norwegian  throne  to  his  second  son,  Hakon, 
known  as  Hakon  VI.,  who  had  married  Margaret  of  Denmark, 
the  people  did  not  forget  him ;  and  after  he  had  fallen  into 
trouble  and  lost  the  throne  of  Sweden,  they  begged  their 
young  king  to  secure  his  freedom,  with  permission  for  him 
to  live  in  Norway  for  the  rest  of  his  days.  Thus  Magnus 
" Smek"  or  the  "  Favourite  Lover,"  as  the  Swedes  called 
him,  was  not  quite  without  friends  amongst  his  subjects. 

Norway  and  Sweden,  like  the  other  countries  of  Europe, 
were  fearfully  plagued  between  1350  and  1360  by  the  pest, 
known  as  the  Black  Death.  Some  Norwegian  parishes"  were 
nearly  rendered  desolate  by  this  scourge,  and  in  one  place 
among  the  hills  it  was  said  that  all  the  inhabitants  had  been 
cut  off  by  the  plague  except  one  little  girl,  who  ran  into  the 
woods,  and  lived  so  long  alone,  feeding  only  on  roots  and 
berries,  that  when  she  was  found  she  had  almost  forgotten 
how  to  talk,  and  had  grown  so  wild  that  she  could  not  bear 
to  be  looked  at  or  spoken  to.  No  one  could  learn  her  name, 
and  she  was  thenceforth  always  known  as  the  "  Rybe,"  Par- 
tridge, and  when  she  married  and  had  a  family,  her  chil- 
dren joined  the  name  "  Rybe "  to  their  father's  name  of 
"Jorgerssen." 

Olaf  in  Norway. — We  have  seen  in  a  former  chapter  that 
when  King  Hakon  died  in  1380,  his  son  Olaf,  who  five  years 
before  had  been  chosen  King  of  Denmark  under  the  regency 
of  his  mother,  Margaret,  succeeded  to  the  throne  of  Norway. 


1 74  SC AND  IN  A  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 

As  the  young  prince  was  only  ten  years  of  age  when  this  second 
northern  crown  was  placed  upon  his  head,  it  was  of  course 
necessary  to  choose  some  one  to  govern  in  his  name ;  and  the 
great  skill  Queen  Margaret  had  shown  in  ruling  Denmark  for 
her  son  now  made  the  Norwegian  people  entrust  the  regency, 
with  full  regal  powers,  to  her  during  the  minority  of  her  son. 
OlaPs  death  in  1387,  at  the  age  of  seventeen,  and  before  he 
had  begun  to  exercise  any  authority  in  the  state,  seemed  for 
the  moment  to  threaten  the  peace  of  the  kingdom.  But  the 
confidence  which  the  nation  had  learnt  to  place  in  Queen 
Margaret  led  the  Council  of  State,  without  any  long  delay,  to 
follow  the  example  set  by  the  Danes,  in  begging  her  to  retain 
the  regal  power,  and  continue  to  rule  the  kingdom  with  the 
rank  of  an  independent  sovereign.  She  was  solemnly  pro- 
claimed Queen  of  Norway  at  Oslo  in  1388,  and  from  that  time 
till  her  death  in  1412,  the  Norwegians  had  little  reason  to 
repent  of  their  choice,  for  while  she  kept  the  country  free  from 
enemies  abroad,  she  caused  the  laws  to  be  carried  out  with 
equal  justice  against  rich  and  poor,  and  brought  the  kingdom 
into  a  condition  of  peace  and  order,  which  it  had  not  known 
for  ages.  Her  popularity  in  Norway  led  the  Norwegian 
Council  of  State  to  agree  to  the  plans  which  she  had  most 
at  heart  in  regard  to  the  choice  of  a  successor,  and  the 
union  of  the  three  northern  kingdoms  under  one  sovereign  ; 
although  in  both  these  important  matters  the  wishes  and 
hopes  of  the  nation  at  large  were  entirely  opposed  to  her  own. 
Yet  so  great  was  the  influence  of  Margaret,  that  while  she 
lived  the  Norwegians  allowed  themselves  to  be  governed  by 
Erik  of  Pomerania,  for  whom  she  had  secured  the  three 
northern  crowns,  conjointly  with  herself ;  and  after  her  death, 
in  respect  for  her  memory,  they  long  continued  true  to  him, 
although  by  his  folly  and  weakness  he  had  forfeited  all  claim 
to  their  respect  and  loyalty. 


THE  THREE  KINGDOMS.  175 


PART  III. 
THE     TRIPLE-CROWNED     QUEEN. 

Margaret,  1387-1397. — Before  we  close  this  chapter  we 
must  enter  somewhat  more  fully  into  the  story  of  Olafs  death, 
and  the  events  which  led  his  subjects  to  choose  Queen  Mar- 
garet to  succeed  him.  Olaf  had  died  suddenly  in  1387,  while 
staying  with  Queen  Margaret  at  Falsterbo,  and  the  common 
people,  as  was  often  the  case  in  that  age,  supposed  that  he 
had  been  poisoned,  while  many  years  afterwards  her  enemies 
spread  a  report  that  he  had  not  died  in  his  youth,  as  was 
supposed,  but  had  been  carried  away  out  of  Norway  by  his 
mother's  orders.  This  absurd  story  led  to  a  plot  being  formed 
against  her  in  the  year  1402,  when  an  impostor  appeared  a.t 
Danzig,  who  gave  himself  out  to  be  King  Olaf,  but  the  false- 
ness of  his  claims  was  soon  brought  to  light ;  and  he  was 
given  up  to  the  queen,  who  caused  him  to  be  burnt  in  the 
market-place  at  Falsterbo. 

The  real  Olaf,  of  whose  death  there  was  no  doubt,  had  received 
a  solemn  funeral  at  Lund  in  Skaania,  after  having  lain  in  state 
for  some  days,  wrapped  in  his  royal  robes,  and  wearing  the 
crown  on  his  head,  while  his  heart,  embalmed  and  enclosed  in  a 
silver  shrine,  was  carried  across  the  Sound  to  Denmark,  where  it 
was  deposited  in  the  abbey  church  at  Soro.  As  soon  as  Olafs 
death  was  known,  Albert  the  Elder,  King  of  Sweden,  appealed 
to  the  Danish  people  for  their  support,  and  as  the  heir  of 
his  nephew,  Albert  the  Younger,  grandson  of  Valdemar  III., 
demanded  the  crown  of  Denmark,  but  the  Danes  paid  no 
attention  to  his  demands,  and  ten  days  after  Olaf  had  been 
laid  in  his  grave,  the  Thing  of  Skaania  made  choice  of  "  their 
dearly  loved,  high-born  princess  and  lady,  Margaret,  to  be  sole 
and  independent  ruler  of  Denmark."  The  Things  of  the 
Islands  and  of  Jutland  fully  concurred  in  this  choice,  and  all 
agreed  in  declaring  that  they  had  taken  the  unusual  step  of 
choosing  a  woman  instead  of  a  man  to  be  their  ruler,  not  so 
much  because  the  Lady  Margaret  was  the  nearest  heir  of  her 


1 76  SCANDINA  VI AN-  HISTOR  Y. 

father,  the  late  King  Valdemar  III.,  but  chiefly  on  account  of 
her  great,  many,  and  well-tried  merits.  "  They  then  did  homage 
to  her  as  their  "  true  king  and  master,"  promising  to  serve  and 
obey  her  all  their  days,  unless  she  of  her  own  accord  should 
wish  to  give  them  a  king  to  rule  over  the  land. 

In  the  following  year  the  Norwegians  followed  the  example 
of  the  Danes,  and  at  the  diet  which  met  in  1388  at  Oslo, 
Margaret  was  proclaimed  Queen  of  Norway,  and  by  her  own 
wish  the  little  prince,  Erik  of  Pomerania,  grandson  of  her 
sister  Ingeborg,  was  chosen  as  her  successor.  Margaret  had 
adopted  this  boy  soon  after  her  son's  death,  and  from  the 
moment  that  the  little  prince,  who  was  only  five  years  old  at 
the  time,  came  to  Denmark  from  his  home  in  Germany,  she 
acted  towards  him  in  all  respects  as  if  he  had  been  her  own 
child,  causing  him  to  be  treated  with  the  greatest  respect  by 
her  officers  and  attendants,  and  to  be  instructed  in  all  the 
learning  and  accomplishments  befitting  a  prince.  By  her 
special  desire,  the  Danes  acknowledged  the  little  Erik  as  her 
successor  on  the  throne  of  Denmark ;  and  when  she  had 
secured  to  him  the  heritage  of  the  Danish  and  Norwegian 
crowns,  she  seemed  to  feel  as  if  she  were  merely  to  govern 
as  a  regent  for  him.  Although  as  long  as  she  lived  all  power 
in  both  kingdoms  rested  in  her  hands,  she  professed  to  reign  in 
Erik's  name  during  his  childhood  ;  and  when  he  was  declared 
of  age,  she  caused  him  to  take  his  place  by  her  side  on  the 
throne,  and  tried  in  all  ways  to  push  him  forward  and  make 
him  appear  to  be  the  real  sovereign.  Her  subjects  seem,  how- 
ever, to  have  been  well  a\vare  that  it  was  to  her  alone  to 
whom  they  owed  the  order  which  prevailed  during  her  reign 
in  Denmark  and  Norway,  while  her  fame  soon  spread  far  be- 
yond the  northern  kingdoms.  We  are  told  by  the  writers  of  the 
great  Chronicle  of  Liibeck,  that  "when  men  saw  the  wisdom 
and  .strength  that  were  in  this  royal  lady,  wonder  and  fear 
filled  their  hearts.  She  made  peace  with  old  foes,  and  kept 
good  order  over  her  people,  gaining  to  her  side  both  nobles 
and  peasants.  She  went  from  castle  to  castle,  and  received 
the  homage  and  faithful  service  of  the  great  ;  she  journeyed 
from  province  to  province,  and  looked  well  into  matters  of 
law  and  of  right,  until  a.11  obeyed  and  served  her;  justice  was 


SWEDEN  TO  1412. 


done  in  the  land,  and  even  the  high-born  sea-robbers,  who  so 
long  had  plagued  the  kingdom  and  defied  the  laws,  were  seized 
with  terror,  and  were  glad  to  come  forward  and  give  surety  in 
money  for  their  future  good  conduct."  The  writers  of  the 
same  chronicle  who  bear  this  testimony  to  Margaret's  talents 
for  ruling,  tell  us  that  "  great  marvel  it  is  to  think  that  a  lady, 
who,  when  she  began  to  govern  for  her  son  found  a  troubled 
kingdom,  in  which  she  owned  not  money  or  credit  enough  to 
secure  a  meal  without  the  aid  of  friends,  had  made  herself  so 
feared  and  loved  in  the  short  term  of  three  months,  that 
nothing  in  all  the  land  was  any  longer  withheld  from  her  and 
her  son." 

PART  IV. 

SWEDEN     UNDER     A     QUEEN. 

Margaret  receives  a  third  Crown. — While  Denmark  and 
Norway  were  thus  enjoying  greater  security  and  quiet  than 
either  kingdom  had  known  for  many  generations,  Sweden 
continued  in  an  unsettled  state,  owing  to  the  discontent  of 
the  people  with  the  king,  Albert  the  Elder  of  Mecklenburg, 
whom  they  had  themselves  chosen  to  replace  their  former 
feeble  ruler,  Magnus  Smek.  Albert,  although  unable  to  govern 
the  one  kingdom  that  had  so  unexpectedly  been  put  under 
him,  was  eager  to  secure  Denmark  as  well  ;  and  when  his 
nephew  Albert  the  Younger,  grandson  of  Valdemar  III.  died, 
he  had,  as  we  have  seen,  pretended  that  this  young  prince's 
claims  on  the  Danish  crown  had  passed  to  him.  He  found, 
however,  that  the  Danes  would  not  listen  to  his  pretensions, 
and  that  his  attempted  invasion  of  the  Danish  kingdom  had 
only  brought  loss  and  disgrace  upon  himself,  which  made  him 
conceive  the  greatest  hatred  for  the  successful  Margaret,  whom 
he  tried  to  bring  into  ridicule  in  every  possible  way.  This  con- 
duct on  his  part  roused  the  Queen's  anger  against  him.  and 
made  her  the  more  ready  to  listen  to  those  Swedish  nobles 
who,  soon  after  she  became  ruler  of  Denmark  and  Norway,  had 
come  to  entreat  that  she  would  accept  the  crown  of  Sweden, 
and  try  to  restore  order  in  that  kingdom  as  she  had  done 

N 


1 78  SC AND  IN  A  VI AN  HIS  7  'OA  Y. 

in  the  other  Scandinavian  lands.  It  was  a  pity  that  Queen 
Margaret  had  not  contented  herself  with  the  two  crowns 
which  were  already  hers,  for  three  were  surely  too  much  for 
any  woman,  especially  as  the  greater  number  of  her  pre- 
decessors had  found  it  no  easy  matter  to  bear  the  burden  of 
one  northern  crown. 

As  soon  as  it  was  known  that  Margaret  intended  to  take 
possession  of  Sweden,  Albert  raised  an  army  of  hired  German 
troops,  and  prepared  to  take  the  field  against  her.  She  in  the 
meanwhile  had  collected  a  large  force,  consisting  of  Danes, 
under  her  general,  Ivar  Lykke ;  Norwegians  under  the  knight, 
Henrik  Parrow  ;  and  Swedes,  under  Erik  Kettlesson  ;  and  in 
the  first  battle  which  was  fought  between  them  the  Swedish 
king  was  completely  defeated.  The  hostile  armies  met  at 
Leahy,  a  little  hamlet  between  Falkoping  and  Jonkoping, 
on  the  24th  February,  1389,  where  the  greater  number  of 
Albert's  German  troops  were  cut  down  or  drowned  while  they 
were  trying  to  force  their  way  over  the  morasses,  which  lay 
between  them  and  the  queen's  forces.  Albert  himself  and  his 
son,  together  with  many  knights,  were  taken  captive  before 
they  could  make  their  escape  from  the  boggy  ground  which 
gave  way  under  their  heavily-weighted  horses  ;  and  being  led 
into  the  presence  of  the  Queen,  who  had  awaited  the  result  of 
the  battle  within  the  castle  of  Bohus,  the  unhappy  father  and 
son  were  made  to  atone  on  the  rack  and  by  a  long  imprison- 
ment for  the  many  insulting  words  and  acts  of  which  they  had 
been  guilty  towards  Margaret. 

Albert  punished  for  his  insults. — The  rhyming  chronicles  of 
those  times  relate  that  King  Albert  had  insulted  the  Queen  by 
sending  her  a  long  gown  and  an  apron,  with  a  whetstone  to 
sharpen  her  needles,  and  had  spoken  oi'  her  as  the  "  unbreeched 
king"  and  ''the  monks'  wife,"  in  allusion  to  the  favour  which 
she  showed  the  prelates,  and  had  tried  in  every  way  to  bring 
ridicule  and  discredit  upon  her.  It  is  said  that  when  Albert 
fell  into  her  power,  she  avenged  herself  for  these  insults  by 
causing  him  to  be  dressed  in  a  long  gown,  bib  and  tucker,  and 
by  having  a  fool's  cap  put  on  his  head  with  a  tail  dangling  from 
it  which  was  nineteen  ells  in  length.  Then  after  letting  her 
servants  keep  him  on  the  rack  till  he  had  promised  to  gi\c 


SWEDEN  70  1412.  179 


orders  that  all  the  frontier-castles  should  be  surrendered  to 
her,1  she  had  him  and  his  son  shut  up  in  prison  within  the 
tower  of  Lindholm  castle,  where  they  were  left  for  seven  years 
to  repent  of  their  rudeness  to  her. 

After  these  events  nearly  all  the  castles  of  Sweden  which 
were  held  by  the  royal  troops  opened  their  gates  to  her. 
Stockholm,  the  chief  city,  however,  held  out  year  after  year, 
until  she  agreed  to  release  her  prisoners  on  the  payment  of  a 
ransom.  The  Swedes  themselves  showed  no  wish  to  oppose 
the  Queen,  and  would  gladly  have  given  Stockholm  into  her 
hands,  but  the  city  was  held  by  a  band  of  Germans  in  the 
service  of  Albert,  who  would  not  submit.  These  men  brought 
great  misery  on  the  land  by  engaging  the  help  of  a  large 
number  of  their  countrymen,  known  as  the  Vita/en,  or  Victualling 
Brotherhood,  because  their  chief  duty  was  to  keep  the  town 
and  fortress  of  Stockholm  well  supplied  with  victuals.  They 
cared  very  little  how  they  got  them,  or  how  heavily  they  taxed 
the  poor  country  people  to  furnish  what  they  needed. 

King  Albeit  and  his  son  were  kept  in  prison  till  1395,  when> 
in  accordance  with  a  treaty  made  with  Queen  Margaret  on 
their  behalf  by  the  Hanse  Leaguers  and  other  German  powers, 
they  were  released  on  the  payment  of  60,000  marks — silver. 
The  Hansers  who  had  advanced  this  sum  had  taken  Stockholm 
as  a  security  for  three  years,  at  the  end  of  which  time  the  city 
was  to  be  given  up  to  the  Queen  if  the  money  were  not  paid 
back  to  them.  It  is  said  that  the  women  of  Mecklenburg  gave 
up  all  their  gold  and  silver  ornaments  to  enable  the  deposed 
king  to  repay  the  ransom,  but  Albert,  with  his  usual  want  of 
principle,  spent  the  money  on  his  own  pleasures,  and  left 
Stockholm  to  fall  into  Margaret's  hands.  In  the  year  1398 
she  made  a  solemn  entry  into  the  Swedish  capital,  accompanied 
by  her  young  nephew,  Erik  of  Pomerania,  who  was  then 
presented  to  the  people  as  their  future  king.  Shortly  after- 
wards, Erik  was  crowned  with  great  state  at  Calmar  by  the 

1  "And  thus,"  say3  the  chronicler  who  relates  the  circumstance,  "was 
King  Albert  tortured  in  one  night  out  of  his  two  castles  of  A. \clwald  and 
Kummelberg,  and  would  by  the  like  means  have  been  robbed  of  a  third, 
Orebro,  if  the  governor,  who  was  a  German,  had  not  defied  Queen  Mar- 
garet's power  and  kept  himself  and  his  men  shut  up  in  the  fort." 

N    2 


i  So  SCA  NDINA  VIA  N  HIS  TOR } '. 

Archbishops  of   Lund  and   Upsala,  and  proclaimed   King  of 
the  three  northern  monarchies,  and  on  this  occasion  the  re- 
markable Act,  known  as  the  Calmar  Act  of  Union,  was  first 
made  known  to  the  Scandinavian  peoples.     By  this  Act,  which 
/had  been  drawn  up  at  Calmar  in  1397,  and  signed  by  the 
\    Queen  and  seventeen  deputies  of  the  several  councils  of  state 
\  of  the  three  northern  kingdoms,  Denmark,  Sweden,  and  Nor- 
i  way  were  declared  to  be  for  ever  united,  and  to  be  ruled  over 
I  by  one  king  only,  while  each  state  was  to  retain  its  own  laws, 
rights,  and  usages.     The  king  of  this  triple  monarchy  was  to 
I  be  chosen  conjointly  by  all  three  nations,  but  nothing  was  said 
/  in  regard  to  the  manner  in  which  the  election  to  the  throne 
I    was  to  be  carried  on,  and  hence  from  the  very  first  this  scheme 
)    for  Scandinavian  unity  was  beset  with  doubts  and  difficulties, 
which  could  not  fail  to  create  troubles  in  the  future.1 
~  Margaret  and  Erik,   1397-1412. — After  the   union   of  the 
three  northern  kingdoms  had  been   settled,  Queen   Margaret 
withdrew  more  and   more    from  public  affairs,  as  if  to  show 
that  Erik,  since  his  coronation  in  1397,  had  become  sole  King 
of  the  Scandinavian  lands.      But  in    fact   she   was   as  much 
the  actual  sovereign  as  ever,  for  Erik's  incapacity  forced  her 
to  retain  her  hold  upon  the  regal  power.       As  long  as  she 
lived,  the  people  scarcely  knew  how  feeble  a  ruler  she   had 
given  them  in  the  person  of  this  young  German  prince,  for 
she  was  almost  always  at   hand   to   advise  and   control   him, 
and  he  was  thus  generally  prevented  from  showing  his   want 
of   talent   for   governing,    or   commanding  troops.     Erik   was 
not   without    a    certain   kind   of  ability,   and  he  was   learned 
and   accomplished    for  the  age    in    which    he    lived,    but    he 
seems  to  have  been  wholly  wanting  in    good    sense,   and  to 

1  If  Margaret  could  have  been  certain  of  being  followed  on  the  throne  by 
rulers  as  able  and  just  as  she  had  been,  this  Act  of  the  L'nion  of  Calmar  might 
have  worked  for  the  good  of  the  three  kingdoms.  For  it  was  quite  true,  as 
the  Queen  said,  that  each  one  alone  was  a  poor  weak  state,  open  to  danger 
from  every  side,  but  that  the  three  united  would  make  a  monarchy,  strong 
enough  to  defy  the  attacks  and  ^chemcs  of  the  IIan->e  traders  and  all  foes 
from  the  side  of  Germany,  and  would  keep  the  Maltic  clear  of  danger 
from  foreigners.  There  was  however  no  ruler  who  came  after  Ouecn 
Margaret  equal  to  her,  as  there  had  been  none  before  her  to  be  compared 
to  her. 


SWEDEN  TO  1412.  181 

have  been  very  vain,  headstrong,  and  obstinate,  besides  which 
his  wonderful  fortune  in  being  chosen  to  rule  over  three  king- 
doms made  him  conceited  and  haughty,  while  at  the  same 
time  he  was  ungrateful  to  her  to  whom  he  owrcd  everything. 
In  spite  of  all  her  watchfulness  he  was  often  led  by  his  own 
wilfulness  to  betray  his  incapacity  to  his  subjects,  and  shortly 
before  Margaret's  death  in  1412,  he  gave  proof  of  his  injustice, 
and  his  indifference  to  her  feelings,  by  ordering  the  execution 
of  her  intimate  friend  and  counsellor,  Abraham  Brodersen,  on 
pretence  that  it  was  owing  to  this  nobleman's  fault  that  the 
war,  which  Erik  was  then  carrying  on  against  the  Counts  of 
Holstein,  had  proved  unsuccessful. 

This  act  must  have  shown  the  Queen  how  unworthy  her 
nephew  was  of  the  confidence  and  affection  she  had  lavished 
upon  him,  and  according  to  some  authorities  it  gave  her  a 
shock  from  which  she  never  recovered.  The  two  years  that 
passed  between  Brodersen's  execution  and  Margaret's  death 
were  marked  by  great  disturbances  in  Denmark,  where  the 
people  were  heavily  taxed  to  keep  up  the  war  which  Erik  was 
waging  against  Holstein,  and  which  had  broken  out  soon  after 
the  death  of  the  former  count,  Gerhard  VI.,  to  whom  Queen 
Margaret  had  in  earlier  times  ceded  the  duchy  of  Slesvig. 
This  prince  had  fallen  in  an  attack  against  the  Ditmarshers  in 
1402,  leaving  three  infant  sons,  the  Counts  Henrik,  Adolf, 
and  Gerhard,  and  the  widowed  countess,  Elizabeth  of  Holstein, 
had  at  first  sought  help  from  Margaret  against  her  hus- 
band's brother,  Bishop  Henrik  of  Osnabriick,  but  after  a  time, 
fearing  that  the  Danish  Queen  might  keep  the  strongholds  in 
Slesvig  which  had  been  garrisoned  with  Danes,  she  made 
friends  with  her  brother-in-law.  Upon  this  a  war  soon  broke 
out,  and  it  was  in  the  midst  of  these  troubles  that  Margaret, 
seeing  how  ill  King  Erik  understood  how  to  conduct  public 
affairs  in  times  of  difficulty,  resolved  to  try  to  bring  about 
a  peace  with  Holstein.  Accordingly,  in  the  spring  of  the  year 
141 2,  she  left  Sjcelland  in  her  ship,  "Trinity,"  and  sailing  to  the 
coast  of  Slesvig,  invited  the  Countess  Eli/abeth  to  confer 
with  her. 

Three  days  after  these  royal  ladies  had  settled  the  terms 
of  an  agreement  which  it  was  hoped  would  restoie  quiet  to 


1 82  SCANDINA  VI AN  IIISTOR  Y. 


the  provinces,  Margaret  died  suddenly  at  the  age  of  sixty- 
three,  and  almost  before  the  sound  of  her  funeral  bells  ceased, 
the  three  kingdoms  had  begun  to  resound  with  the  noise  of 
active  preparations  for  war. 

"  Death,"  says  a  Swedish  writer,  "  made  an  end  of  Queen 
Margaret's  life,  but  it  could  not  make  an  end  of  her  fame, 
which  will  endure  through  all  ages.  Under  her  hands  the 
three  kingdoms  enjoyed  a  degree  of  strength  and  order,  to 
which  they  had  long  been  strangers  before  her  time,  and  which 
neither  of  the  three  regained  till  long  after  her." 


CHAPTER   XIV. 

DENMARK     FROM     1412    TO    1448. 

Erik  rules  alone — Trouble  of  people  at  loss  of  Margaret  ;  her  tact ;  her 
difficulties — Erik's  incompetency  ;  makes  war  for  twenty-five  years 
on  Holstein  ;  rest  of  monarchy  neglected  ;  his  want  of  success — Men 
of  Femern  ;  decision  of  Sigismund,  Erik's  cousin — Erik's  pilgrimage  ; 
capture — Philippa  of  England  ;  her  abilities  ;  the  bad  coinage — Close 
of  Holstein  War — Engelbrechtsson  ;  the  rebellion  ;  his  conduct  to  the 
Bishops — Nobles  side  with  Erik — Karl  Knudsson — Erik's  deposition  ; 
his  piracy  ;  his  return  to  Germany — Christopher  of  Bavaria  ;  his  claims  ; 
nis  character  ;  proclaimed  King  of  Norway  and  Sweden  ;  his  conduct  to 
Knudsson — his  Queen  Dorothea  ;  their  stay  in  Stockholm- — Christopher's 
troubles  ;  his  easy  temper — A  revolt  in  Jutland  ;  peasants  defeated  — 
Christopher's  schemes  for  raising  money  ;  his  death — Search  for  a  new 
king — Christian  of  Oldenburg — Queen  Dorothea's  dowry;  what  became 
of  her — Sweden  under  Christopher  and  Karl  Knudsson — Christopher's 
conduct  to  the  Swedish  people — Trial  of  Swedish  heretics — Kar! 
crowned  king  of  Sweden,  and  soon  afterwards  made  king  of  Norway  ; 
frequently  deposed — Alternation  of  fortune — Enemies  of  Karl  ;  Karl  in 
banishment — Christian  I.  of  Denmark  made  king  of  Sweden  ;  Christian's 
defeat — Karl  dies  king,  and  appoints  Sten  Sture  marshal  at  his  death  ; 
Sten  Sture's  successful  rule  of  Sweden — Prosperity  of  country — Found- 
ing of  Universities  at  Upsala  and  Copenhagen. 

PART   I. 
ERIK     LOSES    THREE     CROWNS. 

Erik,  1412-1439. — THE  news  of  Queen  Margaret's  death 
spread  like  wild-fire  through  the  three  Northern  kingdoms. 
Everywhere  men  were  disturbed  when  they  thought  of  the 
future ;  for,  the  little  that  was  known  of  Erik's  character 
and  conduct  was  fitted  to  excite  fear  and  dislike  of  him 


184  SCANDINA  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 

in  the  minds  of  his  subjects.  Margaret  had  possessed  great 
tact  in  keeping  the  nobles  under  subjection,  while  she  never 
lost  their  affection,  and  she  had  secured  the  goodwill  of  the 
clergy  by  her  liberality  to  the  Church  and  her  deference  to 
their  counsels.  Her  greatest  difficulties  had  been  to  reconcile 
the  national  jealousies  of  the  three  kingdoms,  and  although 
her  policy  in  giving  offices  of  trust  to  Danes  in  Sweden,  and 
to  Swedes  in  Denmark,  had  not  proved  as  successful  as  she 
had  hoped,  and  each  people  grumbled  over  the  heavy  taxes 
imposed  upon  themselves  for  the  common  benefit  of  the  three 
kingdoms,  no  real  opposition  was  ever  offered  to  her  authority, 
and  as  long  as  she  lived  peace  was  preserved  in  all  the  Scandi- 
navian states.  But  after  her  death  everything  was  changed. 
Erik  might  perhaps  have  made  a  respectable  ruler  over  the 
small  and  half-uncivilized  territory  of  his  Pomeranian  fore- 
fathers, but  he  was  quite  unfit  to  rule  over  a  great  empire. 
Although  the  master  of  three  kingdoms,  he  could  not  assert 
his  authority  over  one  feeble  vassal  like  the  young  Count  of 
Holstein,  and  instead  of  attending  to  the  affairs  of  his 
monarchy,  he  spent  twenty-five  years  in  an  useless  war  to 
decide  the  terms  on  which  that  prince  was  to  hold  the  Duchy 
of  Slesvig,  while  the  rest  of  his  dominions  were  left  at  the 
mercy  of  his  German  favourites,  many  of  whom  were  men  of 
low  birth,  who  knew  nothing  whatever  of  public  affairs  and 
could  not  even  speak  the  language  of  the  people. 

King  Erik  was  generally  unsuccessful  in  his  warfare,  as  he 
laid  siege  to  strong  fortresses,  and  attacked  the  enemy  without 
plans  of  any  kind  and  in  a  headstrong  reckless  manner  ;  and 
wherever  he  made  war  he  laid  waste  the  country  and  burnt  out 
the  people,  more  like  a  fierce  Pagan  freebooter  than  a  Christian 
king.  Thus  year  by  year  his  subjects  learnt  to  despise  and 
fear  him  more  and  more.  He  had  treated  the  men  of  the 
island  of  Femern  with  great  cruelty  because  they  had  sided 
with  the  Counts  of  Holstein,  but  his  conduct  instead  of  lead- 
ing them  to  submit  to  his  power,  made  them  fight  all  the  more 
fiercely,  and  when  in  1426  they  gave  him  battle  at  Immervad, 
and  beat  his  troops,  they  had  gone  into  the  field  singing 
loud  enough  for  him  to  hear  a  song  which  ended  with  these 
words  — 


DENMARK  PROM  1412  TO  1448.  185 

"  When  the  cow  in  her  stall 
Will  give  us  tlax  to  spin, 
Then  the  king  in  his  hall 
May  hope  our  land  to  win  !  " 

Erik's  Appeal  1o  _the  Emperor. — A  truce  had  been  agreed 
upon  in  1423  between  Erik  and  the  Holstein  princes  for  a 
year,  but  before  that  term  was  out,  seeing  that  he  could  not 
gain  his  point  in  any  other  way,  he  went  to  Germany,  and  laid 
his  case  before  his  cousin,  the  Emperor  Sigismund.  judgment 
was  given  in  his  favour,  and  an  order  was  issued  by  the  Im- 
perial Council  to  the  Counts  of  Holstein  to  resign  the  Duchy 
of  Slesvig  within  a  limited  time  to  the  King  of  Denmark. 
But  even  then,  when  he  may  be  said  to  have  had  everything  in 
his  own  hands,  instead  of  returning  to  Denmark,  and  forcing 
the  Counts  of  Holstein  to  give  up  the  Duchy  to  him,  he  set  off 
on  a  pilgrimage  to  the  Holy  Land.  At  that  time,  although  he 
was  still  master  of  three  kingdoms,  he  could  only  afford 
to  take  a  retinue  of  forty  men  and  horses  with  him.  On 
reaching  Venice  he  found  himself  short  of  money,  and  having 
put  on  the  dress  of  a  serving-man,  he,  with  a  few  followers, 
joined  a  Venetian  trader  and  wiih  him  went  to  Jerusalem, 
where,  however,  he  was  recognized  and  taken  captive  by  some 
Greeks,  who  would  not  set  him  free  till  they  had  obtained  a 
heavy  ransom  for  him. 

Erik's  English  Queen. — During  Erik's  absence  his  Queen 
Philippa,  the  daughter  of  our  Henry  IV.,  did  her  best  to  keep 
order,  and  she  is  said  to  have  entered  into  a  treaty  with  the 
Hanse-traders  and  other  German  companies  for  bringing  the 
coinage  of  Danish  money  into  some  order.  Much  trouble 
and  confusion  had  arisen  in  the  Northern  kingdoms  owing  to 
the  false  weights  which  King  Erik  had  allowed  to  be  used  in 
coining  money  during  his  reign.  Queen  Philippa  induced  the 
Councils  of  State  of  the  three  kingdoms  to  agree  to  her  plan 
for  settling  the  true  value  of  the  money,  but  as  soon  as  King 
Erik  returned,  the  old  cheating  began  again,  and  during  the 
rest  of  his  reign  money  was  coined  in  his  mints  which  did  not 
contain  the  proper  quantity  of  gold  and  silver,  and  which  there- 
fore was  looked  upon  with  great  distrust  by  the  traders  of  other 
countries,  and  brought  discredit  upon  himself  and  his  people. 


186  SCANDTNA  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 

In  1428  the  Hansers  and  other  Germans  made  an  attack  on 
Copenhagen,  which  did  not  succeed  owing  to  the  able  means 
of  defence  taken  by  Queen  Philippa.  At  length,  in  1435, 
Erik  was  forced  to  make  peace  with  Holstein  and  give  up  the 
Duchy  of  Slesvig  to  Count  Adolf,  the  only  one  of  the  princes 
of  the  family  who  had  outlived  the  long  war.  The  three 
kingdoms  had  all  suffered  much  during  this  great  struggle, 
but  Sweden  seems  to  have  been  the  most  weighed  down  by 
taxes  and  burdens  of  all  kinds,  and  was  so  badly  treated  by 
King  Erik's  servants  and  officers,  that  it  was  no  wonder  the 
people  were  easily  led  to  revolt  against  his  power.  The  chief 
leader  of  the  rebels  was  an  honest  Dalesman,  called  Engel- 
brecht  Engelbrechtsson,  who,  being  anxious  to  free  his 
country,  had  gone  through  the  districts  of  Dalekarlia  and 
Westmannland,  stirring  up  the  people  against  the  king.  At 
his  appeal  they  rushed  to  arms  and  followed  him  in  large 
bands.  The  Swedes  had  good  cause  for  their  hatred  of  King 
Erik,  who  seldom  troubled  himself  to  come  amongst  them, 
and  who  seems  to  have  cared  for  none  of  his  dominions  except 
the  Danish  Islands,  where  he  had  spent  his  childhood  and  youth. 
The  most  hated  of  his  officers  was  the  royal  bailiff,  Jossen 
Ericksson,  or  Jens  Erichsen,  as  the  Danes  call  him,  who, 
amongst  other  cruel  deeds  laid  to  his  charge,  was  accused 
of  having  caused  men  to  be  hung  up  over  blazing  fires,  and 
women  to  be  harnessed  to  heavily-laden  waggons.  Engelbrecht 
drew  up  a  deed  in  which  he  set  forth  a  list  of  these  and  many 
other  wrongs  that  the  Swedish  people  had  suffered  during  the 
reign  of  King  Erik,  and,  taking  this  paper  with  him,  he 
marched  with  a  large  band  of  followers  to  Stockholm,  where 
he  laid  it  before  the  Council  of  State,  praying  them  that  they 
would  restore  to  the  kingdom  its  old  rights,  and  depose  Erik. 
When  the  bishops  and  nobles,  who  were  members  of  the 
Council,  bade  him  bear  in  mind  the  oath  which  he,  as  well  as 
they,  had  taken  to  honour  and  obey  the  king,  Engelbreckt 
without  saying  another  word  caught  up  one  of  the  prelates 
by  the  back  of  his  neck,  and  holding  him  out  of  the  window, 
threatened  to  throw  him  and  all  the  others  down  into  the 
armed  crowd  below,  unless  they  would,  without  further  delay, 
fulfil  the  wishes  of  the  nation.  After  that  the  Council  did  as 


DENMARK  FROM  1412   TO  1448.  187 

he  required,  and  drew  up  and  signed  a  deed  which  set  forth 
that  since  King  Erik  had  broken  his  oath  to  the  Swedish 
nation,  they  would  no  longer  serve  him  as  his  subjects. 

Nobles  side  with  Erik. — The  nobles,  however,  had  no  liking 
for  the  peasants,  and  in  their  hatred  of  this  class  they  over- 
looked much  that  they  did  not  approve  of  in  the  king,  and 
leaving  the  former  to  shift  for  themselves,  they  agreed  in  1436 
to  a  new  act  of  union  with  Denmark  and  Norway,  and  renewed 
their  homage  to  Erik.  If  this  prince  had  been  less  false  and 
changeable,  he  might  have  kept  his  Swedish  crown,  for  the 
Swedes  had  a  great  respect  for  their  rulers,  and  were  never 
very  eager  to  oppose  the  authority  of  those  who  were  set  over 
them.  But  nothing  seemed  to  teach  King  Erik  that  honesty 
is  always  the  best  policy ;  and  he  so  often  broke  faith  with  his 
subjects,  that  at  last  they  no  longer  felt  any  scruples  in  break- 
ing faith  with  him.  He  had  chosen  a  young  Swedish  noble- 
man, called  Karl  Knudsson  Bondar,  to  be  marshal  or  viceroy 
of  Sweden,  and  to  govern  the  kingdom  for  him.  And  for  a  short 
time  he  seemed  to  act  openly  and  fairly  by  him,  but  very  soon 
Knudsson  found  out  that  Erik  had  planned  his  disgrace  and 
ruin,  and  as  he  was  fond  of  power  and  not  much  more  loyal  to 
his  word  than  the  king,  he  at  once  began  to  lay  schemes  for 
gaining  the  crown  for  himself.  About  this  time  Engelbreckt 
Engelbrecktsson  was  murdered  by  one  of  the  marshal's 
friends,  and  the  peasants,  who  had  no  other  leader  in  whom 
they  trusted,  were  then  easily  gained  over  by  Karl  Knudsson, 
and  made  to  renounce  their  allegiance  to  King  Erik.  The 
Swedish  Council  of  State  also  took  up  Karl's  cause,  and  pro- 
claimed him  King  of  Sweden,  after  deposing  Erik  in  the  year 
1439.  When  the  Danes  heard  of  what  the  Swedes  had  done, 
they  also  declared  that  they  would  no  longer  have  Erik  of 
Pomerania  for  their  king. 

At  that  moment  King  Erik  was  on  his  way  to  Gothland, 
where  he  had  intended  to  remain  tiil  his  Councils  of  State 
should  submit  to  his  wishes,  and  declare  his  young  cousin, 
Bugislav  of  Pomerania,  heir  to  the  three  kingdoms.  When 
he  heard  of  the  steps  which  his  subjects  had  taken  against 
him  in  his  absence,  he  prepared  to  return  to  Denmark, 
threatening  to  punish  their  conduct  with  extreme  severity. 


iSS  SCANDINA  VI AN  IIISTOR  Y. 

But  he  was  not  allowed  to  land  at  any  port,  and  when  all  his 
money  was  spent  and  he  failed  to  gain  funds  by  piracy,  he 
went  to  Pomerania,  where  he  spent  the  last  ten  years  of  his 
"life  in  neglect  and  even  poverty,  and  died  in  1459  without 
ever  having  set  his  foot  again  on  any  of  his  former  dominions. 


PART  II. 

THE     OLDENBURG     LINE     BEGINS. 

Christopher,  1439-1448.  —  In  the  year  1438,  the  Danish 
Council  of  State,  after  declaring  that  King  Erik  had  forfeited 
all  claim  to  the  allegiance  of  the  Danes,  offered  the  crown  to 
his  nephew,  Christopher,  son  of  Duke  John  of  Bavaria  and  of 
Catherine  of  Pomerania,  only  sister  of  the  late  king.  This 
young  prince  joyfully  agreed  to  all  the  terms  proposed  by  the 
Council,  and  on  his  first  arrival  in  Denmark,  he  contented 
himself  with  the  title  of  regent  of  the  kingdom,  and  pledged 
himself  to  govern  according  to  their  advice,  but  he  soon  took 
the  title  of  king,  and  in  1439  he  was  crowned  at  Viborg,  in 
Jutland,  where  the  nobles  and  clergy  did  homage  to  him.  The 
ancient  laws  of  the  land  required  that  the  peasants  should  take 
an  equal  part  with  the  higher  classes  in  the  choice  of  the  king, 
but  this  branch  of  the  nation  had  sunk  so  low  that  the  Councils 
of  State  no  longer  thought  of  consulting  them  in  any  way. 
Vet  although  they  were  not  allowed  to  have  any  share  in 
offering  the  crown  to  Christopher  of  Bavaria,  they  were  well 
pleased  to  have  him  for  their  king,  for  in  the  earlier  visits 
which  he  had  made  to  his  uncle's  court  he  had  gained  the 
goodwill  of  the  nation  at  large,  and  by  his  easy  temper,  rheer- 
fulnesss  and  general  kindness  of  manner,  hail  made  himself  a 
great  favourite  among  the  Danes. 

As  soon  as  Christopher  was  crowned  king  of  Denmark,  he 
began  to  strive  to  secure  the  thrones  of  Sweden  and  Xonvav, 
and  left  public  affairs  in  the  Danish  kingdom  to  be  settled  by 
the  Council  of  State,  while  he  turned  his  mind  to  win  over  the 
Swedes  and  Norwegians.  At  l:rst  there  seemed  l:t,!e  chance 


DENMARK  FROM  1412   TO  1448. 


that  he  would  succeed,  for  in  Norway  most  men  still  looked 
upon  Erik  as  their  rightful  king,  and  in  Sweden  the  marshal 
and  regent,  Karl  Knudsson,  who  wanted  the  crown  for  him- 
self, had  a  strong  party  in  his  favour.  Margaret's  scheme  for 
uniting  the  three  kingdoms  under  one  crown  was  thus  thwarted 
on  the  first  attempt  to  carry  it  out,  but  in  1442,  after  much 
trouble  and  long  suspense,  Christopher  was  proclaimed  king 
both  in  Norway  and  Sweden.  The  Swedes  had  been  the  first 
to  submit  to  him,  chiefly  through  the  persuasions  of  their 
clergy,  to  whom  Christopher  had  promised  special  privileges, 
and  whom  he  won  over  by  so  many  gifts  that  the  bondar  class, 
who  never  cared  much  for  this  German  prince,  called  him  the 
"  bishops'  king."  Christopher  had  to  pay  a  heavy  price  for 
the  Swedish  crown,  for  besides  the  clergy  he  had  to  buy  over 
the  marshal,  Karl  Knudsson,  who  would  not  receive  him  as 
king  until  he  had  secured  for  himself  the  duchy  of  Finland  as 
an  hereditary  fief,  and  the  island  of  Oeland  for  a  term  of  years, 
besides  a  large  sum  of  money  in  payment  of  his  outlay  while 
regent  of  the  kingdom.  Knudsson  had  also  obtained  from 
the  king  a  written  promise  that  he  should  never  in  any  way  be 
called  to  account  for  his  acts,  or  for  the  manner  in  which  he 
had  spent  the  public  money  while  he  ruled  the  kingdom,  but 
in  spite  of  this,  heavy  demands  were  soon  made  upon  him  for 
lands  and  moneys  which  his  enemies  charged  him  with  having 
taken  on  false  pretences,  and  he  was  forced  to  give  up  Oeland 
and  great  part  of  Finland.  His  brother-nobles,  who  had 
always  been  jealous  of  him,  did  their  utmost  to  keep  up  ill- 
will  between  him  and  the  king,  and  during  this  short  reign 
the  marshal  had  no  share  in  the  government,  and  was  even 
seldom  seen  at  the  Swedish  court. 

Christopher's  Queen. — In  the  year  1446,  King  Christopher 
brought  his  young  bride,  Dorothea  of  Brandenburg,  to  Stock- 
holm to  be  crowned  Queen  of  Sweden.  The  time  was  not 
well  chosen  for  wedding  festivities,  for,  besides  many  other 
causes  of  trouble  in  the  land,  there  was  almost  a  famine  owing 
to  the  bad  seasons  of  the  previous  year.  And  the  people, 
enraged  at  the  lavish  waste  of  the  Court  and  the  quantity  of 
corn  used  at  Stockholm  to  feed  the  horses  in  the  royal  stables, 
collected  in  large  bodies  around  the  palace,  uttering  cries  of 


190  SCANDINA  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 

anger  against  Christopher,  whom  they  called  the  "  bark-bread, ' 
and  "famine"  king,  and  threatening  to  set  Karl  Knudsson 
on  the  throne  in  his  place.  This  state  of  things  made  Sweden 
hateful  to  the  king  and  his  young  queen,  and  they  were  glad 
to  get  away  from  the  country  as  soon  as  they  could,  but  they 
fared  scarcely  better  in  their  other  kingdoms,  for  in  Norway 
King  Erik  was  still  held  in  greater  favour  than  Christopher, 
and  in  Denmark  the  people  grumbled  over  their  high  taxes 
and  hard  living  nearly  as  loudly  as  the  Swedes.  Poor  King 
Christopher  cannot  have  had  a  very  happy  life  after  he  had 
won  the  three  crowns  which  he  had  so  much  coveted,  for 
everything  that  went  wrong  in  any  one  of  his  kingdoms  was 
always  laid  to  his  charge,  and  he  had  constantly  to  listen  to 
a  long  list  of  grievances  set  forth  by  one  or  another  of  his 
three  Councils  of  State.  On  the  whole  he  seems  to  have  had 
an  easy  temper,  and  a  way  of  trying  to  make  the  best  of 
troubles  which  he  could  not  mend.  On  one  occasion  a  body 
of  Swedish  nobles  came  to  his  Danish  court  at  Viborg  to 
complain  that  the  coasts  of  Sweden  were  being  troubled  by 
pirates,  who  were  believed  to  be  in  the  pay  of  the  late  King 
Erik,  and  to  demand  that  they  should  be  pursued  and 
punished  without  mercy.  "  Well !  "  answered  the  king,  "  it 
certainly  is  a  pity  that  my  uncle  cannot  find  a  more  honest 
way  of  getting  his  living,  but  after  robbing  him  of  his  three 
kingdoms,  I  do  not  think  we  ought  to  be  very  hard  upon  him 
if  he  snatches  a  dinner  now  and  then  without  paying  for  it.  A 
man  cannot  live  on  nothing,  you  know  !  " 

Revolt  in  Jutland.  —  The  Swedes  were  very  angry  at 
Christopher's  indifference  to  their  troubles,  and  when  the 
peasants  of  Jutland  raised  a  revolt  in  favour  of  King  Erik, 
they  would  not  supply  him  with  the  men  and  money  which  he 
wanted  them  to  give  him,  and  it  was  some  time  before  he  was 
able  to  collect  an  army  and  advance  against  the  rebels.  This 
was  in  fact  the  very  worst  peasant-war  that  any  Danish  kin; 
ever  had  to  meet.  At  one  time  there  were  35,000  men  in 
arms  against  the  royal  troops,  and  once  when  they  gained  the 
dcyin  a  great  battle,  they  sci/ed  upon  the  king's  general,  yEske 
Brock,  and  put  him  and  twelve  other  nobles  to  death.  The 
Jutlanders  had  gained  over  to  their  side  a  leader  of  noble  birth, 


DENMARK  FROM  1412  TO  1448.  191 

called  Henrik  Tagesons,  and  for  a  time  it  seemed  as  if  the 
rebels  would  succeed  in  putting  down  the  power  of  the  king 
and  nobles  in  Jutland.  Everywhere  the  rich  were  pursued 
and  slain,  their  houses  burnt,  and  their  lands  seized  and 
parted  among  the  peasants,  who  were  however  at  last 
thoroughly  defeated  in  a  battle  fought  near  Aagard  in  Jutland, 
and  from  that  time  forth  they  were  forced  to  pay  heavy  fines 
to  the  crown  and  the  great  landowners,  and  to  give  tithes 
to  the  clergy,  which  was  more  hateful  to  them  than  any  other 
obligation  that  could  have  been  laid  upon  them. 

Ways  of  Raising  Money. — Christopher,  who  was  always  in 
want  of  money,  tried  in  the  course  of  his  reign  various  shabby 
ways  of  obtaining  it.  In  Sweden  he  sold  the  crown-fiefs  to  the 
highest  bidders,  and  sometimes,  as  it  was  said,  his  officers  took 
money  from  two  or  more  buyers  of  one  fief,  and  then  left  them 
to  settle  by  fighting  between  themselves  who  was  to  be  the 
owner.  In  1447  he  seems  to  have  taken  a  lesson  from  his 
uncle,  the  pirate  king  Erik,  for  he  sent  ships  to  waylay  a 
number  of  Dutch  and  English  trading  vessels  as  they  were 
passing  through  the  Sound,  and  seized  upon  all  the  money 
which  they  had  received  in  return  for  the  goods  sold  by  them  t<  > 
his  own  subjects  in  Denmark,  Sweden  and  Norway.  In  the 
following  year  this  ignoble  king  planned  another  money-raid, 
and  on  pretence  of  wishing  to  go  on  a  pilgrimage  to  the  church 
of  Wilsnak  in  Brandenburg,  demanded  a  free  passage  for  him- 
self and  his  retinue  through  the  Hanse-towns.  His  real  object, 
however,  was  the  attack  and  plunder  of  the  rich  trading  port  of 
Lybeck,  where  a  number  of  German  princes,  who  were  in 
league  with  him,  had  assembled  as  if  by  chance,  bringing  with 
them  arms  which  they  had  hid  in  empty  wine  casks.  The  break- 
ing out  of  a  fire  in  the  night,  which  was  mistaken  by  the  Danes 
and  their  friends  for  the  signal  of  attack,  saved  the  city,  for 
the  citizens  on  finding  out  the  treachery  of  their  guests 
sounded  the  alarm  bells,  and,  gathering  together  in  large 
numbers,  drove  the  strangers  out  and  forced  Christopher  to 
leave  the  harbour  with  all  his  ships  and  men.  On  reaching 
Helsingborg  the  king  found  himself  too  ill  to  proceed  further, 
and  after  a  few  days'  suffering  he  died  in  the  first  week  of  the 
year  1448,  from  the  bursting  of  a  malignant  tumour,  which  was 


1 92  SC AND  IN  A  I'lAN  H1STGR  Y. 

ascribed  to  poison,  according  to  a  common  mode  of  explaining 
diseases  not  understood  by  the  surgeons  of  those  times. 

Council  in  search  of  a  King. — As  Christopher  died  leaving 
no  children,  the  Councils  of  State  found  themselves  again 
called  upon  to  look  about  them  for  some  prince  of  the  royal 
blood  to  whom  they  might  offer  their  crowns.  The  Danish 
Council  at  once  fixed  upon  Adolf,  Duke  of  Holstein,  and  not 
waiting  for  the  burial  of  the  king,  they  sent  to  offer  the  throne 
to  that  prince,  hoping  that  by  this  choice  they  might  again 
unite  Slesvig  with  Denmark.  But  Duke  Adolf,  who  had  no 
children  and  who  loved  his  ease,  would  not  trouble  himself  to 
accept  the  crown  which  was  offered  to  him.  He  told  them, 
however,  that  if  they  were  in  want  of  a  king  from  his  family, 
he  thought  they  could  not  do  better  than  take  his  nephew, 
Count  Christian  of  Oldenburg,  who,  like  himself,  could  trace 
his  descent  from  the  old  royal  Danish  house  through  Rikissa, 
daughter  of  Erik  Clipping.  The  council  followed  Count 
Adolf's  advice,  and  as  the  young  Oldenburg  prince  at  once 
accepted  the  offer  which  they  made  him  of  the  Danish  crown, 
no  time  was  lost  in  settling  who  was  to  succeed  King 
Christopher.  The  Council  next  had  to  think  what  was  to  be 
done  in  regard  to  the  widowed  Queen  Dorothea,  whose  large 
dowry  had  all  been  spent,  and  would  now  have  to  be  refunded. 
But  here  again  Count  Christian  helped  them  out  of  their  dif- 
ficulty, for  he  made  himself  so  agreeable  to  this  young  widow 
of  seventeen,  that  she  consented  to  marry  him  as  soon  as  her 
term  of  mourning  was  past,  and  thus  saved  the  Danes  the 
hard  task  of  raising  a  large  sum  of  money  to  repay  to  her 
father  the  ample  fortune,  which  her  late  husband  had  spent  on 
his  unlucky  wars. 


PART  III. 

SWEDEN     UNDER     DANISH     RULERS. 

Sweden  from  1434. — Before  we  close  this  chapter,  we  must 
take  a  glance  at  what  had  been  going  on  in  Sweden  and 
Norway  since  the  days  when  Engelbrecht  Engelbrechtsson  ha  i 


SWEDEN  IN  THE  i$tA  CENTURY.  193 

so  boldly  come  before  King  Erik  of  Denmark  to  demand 
justice  for  his  fellow-countrymen.  Engelbrecht's  first  visit  to 
the  Danish  court  was  made  in  1434,  and  from  that  time  till 
Erik  was  deposed  in  1439  one  congress  after  the  other  met 
to  consult  about  public  affairs  in  Sweden  ;  but  no  lasting  good 
was  effected  by  all  these  meetings,  and  public  affairs  were  as 
much  disturbed  as  ever.  The  great  men  of  the  land  fought 
and  struggled  among  themselves  for  freedom  from  all  restraint 
but  that  of  their  own  will,  and  the  peasants  were  made  to  pay 
heavily  in  the  way  of  taxes  and  forced  labour  for  the  little 
liberty  that  they  could  still  claim.  Change  of  rulers  did  not 
make  much  difference  to  the  lower  classes,  but  still  they  agreed 
generally  with  the  nobles  in  hating  Danish  rule,  although  fear 
or  interest  often  made  them  offer  to  do  homage  to  Danish 
kings.  Party  spirit  ran  high  in  Sweden  at  the  time  when 
Christopher  of  Bavaria  was  elected  King  of  Denmark  in  1440. 
And  although  the  diet  which  met  that  year  at  Arboga  had 
passed  a  solemn  decree  that  the  union  of  Calmar  should  never 
be  renewed,  and  no  foreign  king  should  ever  again  be  chosen 
in  Sweden,  the  Marshal  Karl  Knudsson  was  able  in  the  same 
year  to  persuade  the  electors  to  proclaim  Christopher  king,  in 
return  for  which,  as  we  have  seen,  he  secured  to  himself  the 
fief  of  Finland,  and  received  Oeland  in  pledge  for  the  moneys 
which,  according  to  his  own  statement,  he  had  spent  in  the 
public  service.  At  the  moment  Karl  was  thus  apparently 
serving  the  cause  of  the  King  of  Denmark,  it  was  reported  by 
his  friends  that  a  pious  man  had  foretold  that  he  would  be 
crowned  King  of  Sweden  at  Upsala,  and  that  a  little  child  had 
even  seen  the  crown  sparkling  on  his  head.  These  rumours 
made  a  great  impression  on  the  superstitious  and  the  ignorant, 
and  when  his  tall  and  handsome  person  was  seen  by  the  side 
of  the  short  and  stout  King  Christopher,  the  Stockholmers  ran 
after  them  crying  out :  "The  marshal  ought  to  be  king.  Our 
crown  would  better  suit  him  than  that  stumpy  little  German  !  " 
Christopher  could  not  have  been  very  well  pleased  with  these 
remarks,  but  he  was  a  good-natured  man,  and  only  observed 
that  "the  Swedes  were  a  free-spoken  people." 

It  was  the  clergy,  as  we  have  seen  in  a  former  part  of  this 
chapter,  who  had  the  greatest  share  in  securing  the  crown  of 

o 


194  SCAND1NA  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 

Sweden  for  King  Christopher  of  Denmark  ;  and  to  reward 
them,  he  granted  their  order  greater  freedom  than  they  had 
ever  enjoyed  in  the  kingdom.  During  his  stay  in  Sweden 
Christopher  took  part  in  the  first  trial  against  heretics  that  had 
been  witnessed  by  the  Swedes,  and  looked  on  while  a  poor 
half-witted  peasant  was  made  to  do  public  penance  for  the 
opinions  he  had  expressed,  and  sentence  was  read  aloud 
against  all  who  might  in  future  repeat  the  offence  for  which  he 
was  punished.  The  nobles  rose  against  Karl  Knudsson  as 
soon  as  he  left  Stockholm  to  take  possession  of  his  fief,  and 
King  Christopher,  who  was  always  in  want  of  money,  seized 
upon  the  occasion  to  extort  fines  from  the  Marshal  in  defiance 
of  his  promises  to  him,  and  to  offer  his  lands  to  anyone  who 
would  bid  the  highest  for  them.  While  these  things  were 
going  on  among  the  great  men  of  the  kingdom,  the  poor  were 
dying  off  under  the  evil  effects  of  murrain  among  the  cattle, 
famine,  and  the  plague. 

The  news  of  King  Christopher's  death  in  1448  recalled  Karl 
Knudsson  from  Finland,  and  in  the  following  year  he  entered 
Stockholm  with  a  great  array  of  troops,  and  after  some  months 
of  disturbance  and  conflict,  he  was  proclaimed  king  at  the 
Mora  Stone  amid  great  cheering  on  the  part  of  all  the  people, 
and  soon  aftenvards  crowned,  together  with  his  wife,  at  Upsala.1 
When  the  news  of  these  events  reached  Norway,  the  Norwegians 
showed  a  strong  desire  to  take  Karl  for  their  king,  and  they 
sent  messengers  to  Christian  of  Oldenburg  to  announce  to  him 
that  they  were  resolved  never  again  to  submit  to  be  ruled  by 
a  Danish  monarch,  after  which  Karl  was  crowned  King  of 
Norway  in  the  cathedral  of  Trondhjem.  But  Karl  had  not  the 
power  of  retaining  what  had  been  given  him,  and  soon  the 
Norwegians  found  themselves  in  the  midst  of  a  civil  war,  which 
had  been  stirred  up  in  the  country  by  Christopher's  successor. 
King  Christian  of  Denmark,  who  had  friends  amongst  the 
upper  classes.  The  Swedish  and  Danish  kings  both  sent 

1  The  Swedish  Khymin^  Chronicle  says  of  her  : — 
"  Af  alia  cle  !•  ruer  man  kan  Icta 

Skal  man  aldrig  skonarc  <[i:inn:i  vela." 

Of  all  the  ladies  one  may  see, 
Ne'er  was  a  fairer  dame  than  she. 


SWEDEN  IN  THE  \$th  CENTURY.  195 


hostile  armies  into  the  kingdom,  and  Norway  was  made  a  battle- 
ground for  foreign  hired  troops,  who  cared  for  neither  party, 
and  only  strove  to  secure  booty  for  themselves.  In  the  course 
of  this  war  Danes  were  found  fighting  in  Karl's  ranks,  and 
Swedes  on  the  side  of  King  Christian,  and  men  seemed  to  care 
very  little  for  their  country  in  comparison  with  their  private 
interests.  It  must  be  owned,  however,  that  many  persons  had 
family  connections  in  all  three  kingdoms,  and  therefore,  it 
might  have  been  a  hard  matter  to  decide  on  which  side  one 
ought  to  take  up  arms. 

Karl  Knudsson  made  King  of  Sweden,  1457. — Karl  Knudsson 
did  not  make  as  good  a  king  as  might  have  been  expected  from 
his  former  conduct ;  and  from  a  brave  and  daring  party-leader 
he  became  a  weak  and  suspicious  monarch.  His  officers,  whom 
he  chose  from  the  lower  classes,  behaved  iquite  as  ill,  or  worse 
than  the  foreigners  who  had  been  employed  under  Danish  or 
German  rulers ;  and  very  soon  both  poor  and  rich  agreed  in 
disliking  their  old  favourite,  while  the  clergy  were  especially 
opposed  to  him  on  account  of  the  laws  which  he  had  caused 
to  be  passed  to  prevent  the  Church  being  enriched  by  gifts 
from  persons  on  their  death-beds. 

The  Archbishop,  Jons  Bengtsson,  had  also  long  and  private 
causes  of  anger  against  the  Swedish  king,  and  in  1457  this 
primate  at  length  ceased  to  keep  up  any  pretence  of  good-will 
towards  him,  and  having  with  solemn  state  laid  his  mitre,  staff, 
and  pallium,  or  cloak,  on  the  high  altar  of  the  cathedral  of 
Upsala,  he  put  on  armour,  and  sword  in  hand  advanced  to  the 
church  door  on  which  he  caused  to  be  posted  up  a  declaration 
of  war  against  the  king.  Karl  made  only  a  faint  attempt  to 
resist  the  rebels,  and  finding,  as  the  old  chronicler,  Olaus  Petri, 
says,  that  "  his  primate  was  in  right  good  earnest  and  had  no 
idea  of  playing  at  war,"  he  embarked  in  haste  and  secresy  by 
night  with  as  much  of  his  wealth  in  gold  and  silver  as  he  could 
carry  away  with  him,  and  betook  himself  to  Dantzig,  where  he 
remained  for  seven  years.  Then  it  was  that  Christian  1.  of 
Denmark  was  able  to  secure  the  crown  of  Sweden  for  himself, 
with  the  promise  that  his  eldest  son  Hans  should  succeed  him, 
but  the  people  soon  began  their  old  complaints  against  Danish 
rule.  For  a  time  all  had  seemed  to  promise  well,  but  when 

o  2 


196  SCANDINA  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 

in  the  year  1463  a  report  was  spread  that  Karl  was  coming 
back  from  his  exile,  it  gave  the  Swedes  courage  to  express 
their  discontent  at  the  heavy  taxes  which  the  Archbishop,  on 
behalf  of  King  Christian,  had  been  levying  upon  them ;  and 
rising  in  numbers  all  over  the  countiy,  they  threatened  to  re- 
nounce their  allegiance  to  him  unless  these  burdens  were  re- 
moved. The  primate  to  restore  quiet  agreed  to  their  demands, 
which  so  enraged  Christian  that  he  ordered  the  arrest  of  Jons 
Bengtsson,  whose  enemies  in  the  Council  caused  the  words 
" the  Archbishop  is  a  traitor"  to  be  written  in  large  letters  upon 
all  the  public  buildings  and  churches  of  Stockholm.  The 
peasants,  who  looked  upon  the  primate  as  a  martyr  in  their 
cause,  took  up  arms,  and  advanced  towards  the  capital  for  his 
rescue,  but  they  and  the  citizens  who  took  part  with  them  were 
soon  quite  routed  by  the  Marshal  Thure  Thuresson,  who  gained 
for  himself  the  name  of  "  the  Peasants'  Butcher,"  on  account 
of  his  great  severity  towards  them.  It  was  said  of  him  that  he 
had  spared  neither  air,  water,  nor  land  in  his  thirst  for  gold,  as 
he  had  pulled  the  gilt  weather-cock  from  the  highest  tower  in 
Stockholm,  broken  down  walls,  and  drained  lakes  in  search 
of  treasures.  Still  the  peasants  kept  up  the  strife,  and  in  the 
winter  of  1464  King  Christian  I.  of  Denmark  had  to  come 
back  to  Sweden  to  quell  the  tumult.  He  had  left  the  Arch- 
bishop shut  up  in  a  Danish  prison,  and  he  now  appeared  at  the 
head  of  an  army  to  chastise  the  rebels.  But  the  peasants  of 
Dalekarlia  still  defied  him,  and  leading  him  by  false  informa- 
tion to  advance  into  a  thick  wood  in  Westmannland  they  gave 
him  battle,  defeated  him,  and  forced  him  to  return  to  Denmark 
without  having  gained  any  footing  in  Sweden.  Then  a  war-cry 
was  raised  all  over  the  land  :  "  Sweden  is  a  kingdom,  not  a 
farm  or  a  parish  to  be  ruled  over  by  bailiffs,  and  we  will  have 
no  Danish  overseers  to  plague  us,  but  a  true-born  Swede  for 
our  king."  On  this  the  Council  of  State  had  to  yield  to  the 
wishes  of  the  people,  and  recall  the  exiled  king,  who,  how- 
ever, once  again  for  a  period  of  many  months  was  forced  to 
leave  his  kingdom  and  give  place  to  Christian. 

Karl's  successors,  1467-1470. — In  1467,  Karl  Knudsson 
for  the  third  time  recovered  the  throne  which  he  retained 
till  his  death  three  years  later,  and  with  his  last  breath  he 


SWEDEN  IN  THE  \yh  CENTURY.  197 

entrusted  the  government  of  the  kingdom  to  his  nephew,  Sten 
Sture,  while  he  earnestly  prayed  him  never  to  attempt  to  gain 
the  throne  for  himself.  After  some  hesitation  on  the  part  of 
the  Council  of  State,  Sten  Sture  was  formally  proclaimed 
Regent  and  Marshal  of  Sweden  in  the  spring  of  1471.  Six 
months  later,  King  Christian  I.  of  Denmark,  landed  near 
Stockholm  with  a  large  army  of  German  hired  troops,  who 
boasted  of  all  the  disgrace  which  they  would  bring  upon  men 
and  maidens  throughout  the  land,  while  Christian  in  his  con- 
tempt for  Sten  Sture  called  him  a  conceited  puppy,  who 
needed  a  sound  thrashing  to  make  him  know  his  right  place. 
But  the  result  of  the  day's  fight  at  Brunkebjerg,  when  Sten 
Sture's  wife  and  other  noble  ladies  looked  down  from  the  castle 
walls  on  the  combatants  below,  was  very  different  from  what 
the  invaders  expected,  and  their  complete  defeat  freed  Sweden 
for  some  years  from  further  attacks  on  the  part  of  the  Danes. 
King  Christian  I.  never  again  set  his  foot  on  Swedish  ground, 
and  for  a  short  time  the  kingdom  enjoyed  greater  quiet  and 
prosperity  under  Sten  Sture  than  it  had  known  during  the 
whole  of  the  century.  Amongst  other  blessings,  the  people 
owed  to  the  marshal  the  revival  of  trade  and  agriculture,  while 
schools  and  learned  men  were  encouraged,  and  the  University 
of  Upsala  was  founded  and  opened  with  great  state  two  years 
before  Copenhagen  could  boast  of  a  similar  institution  in  1479. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

DENMARK    AND     SWEDEN     FROM     1450. 

Christian  of  Oldenburg  father  of  the  present  line  of  Danish  kings — His 
character — His  nickname  of  " Stringless  Purse"  well  merited— His 
efforts  to  secure  the  crowns  of  Sweden  and  Norway — His  defeat  in 
Sweden  in  1471  after  many  successes — His  schemes  for  getting  money — 
His  conduct  in  regard  to  Slesvig — Secures  the  duchy  and  gains  the  title 
of  Count  of  Holstcin — What  he  sacrificed  for  these  provinces — His 
daughter  Margaret's  dowry — Loses  the  Shetlands  and  Orkneys — The 
University  of  Copenhagen — His  dislike  of  Denmark — His  son  Hans 
succeeds  him — Hans'  troubles  to  secure  the  three  kingdoms  and  two 
provinces — Prince  Frederick's  bad  advice  and  ambition — Conquest  and 
loss  of  Sweden — Campaign  against  the  Ditmarshers — Hans  defeated — 
Only  one  successful  war  in  this  reign — Affairs  in  Sweden  since  1434 — - 
Karl  Knudsson  the  marshal  made  king — Christopher  of  Bavaria  laughed 
at  by  the  Swedes — The  troubles  with  the  primate  Jons  Hcngtsson — Sten 
Sture  and  his  conduct  to  Christian  I. — Hans  in  Sweden — Sten  Sture's 
speech  to  him,  and  Hans'  reply — Hemming  Gade — His  hatred  of  Den- 
mark— Svante  Sture  the  adopted  heir  of  Sten  Sture — His  love  of  war 
and  soldiers — His  bravery — Svante's  sudden  death — Sten  Sture  the 
bravest  of  the  Stures — Christian  II.,  his  treachery  to  the  Swedish 
hostages — Gustaf  Vasa  carried  to  Denmark  and  thrown  into  prison 
— Sweden  laid  under  an  interdict — Sten  Sture  excommunicated  ;  he 
dies  in  1520,  and  Christian  II.  makes  himself  master  of  Sweden. 

TART  I. 
THE  FATHER  OF  THE  OLDENBURG  KINGS. 

Christian  /,  1448-1481. — LOYAL  Danes  have  always  shown 
themselves  very  ready  to  excuse  the  faults  and  extol  the  merits 
of  Christian  I.,  the  founder  of  the  long  line  of  kings  who  have 
ruled  over  Denmark  for  more  than  four  hundred  years.  It  is 
true  that  he  was  a  brave  man,  of  a  cheerful  and  amiable  dis- 
position, but  he  was  selfish  and  wasteful,  and  cared  very  little 


DENMARK  AND  SWEDEN  FROM  1450.  199 


for  the  troubles  and  burdens  which  his  useless  wars  broiio:!  t 
upon  his  subjects.  He  might  have  proved  a  very  good  king 
to  the  Danes  if  he  had  been  content  with  the  one  crown 
which  they  had  given  him,  but  he  would  not  rest  till  he  had  added 
to  it  the  crowns  of  Sweden  and  Norway.  As  neither  the  Swedes 
nor  the  Norwegians  wished  to  have  him  for  their  king,  and 
were  anxious  to  annul  the  Act  of  Union,  which  Queen  Margaret 
had  forced  them  to  make  with  Denmark,  Christian  did  not 
effect  his  purpose  very  easily;  and  for  twenty  years  of  his  reign 
the  lives  and  property  of  his  subjects  were  wasted  in  unprofit- 
able struggles.  During  this  time  public  affairs  in  Denmark 
were  neglected,  and  the  unhappy  Danes  were  nearly  ruined  by 
the  heavy  taxes,  loans  and  gifts  demanded  of  them  to  carry  on 
war,  or  to  defray  the  cost  of  the  many  journeys,  which  Christian 
made  to  Germany  and  to  Rome  for  the  purpose  of  seeking  help 
from  the  Emperor  or  Pope.  Christian's  sudden  change  of 
fortune  might  perhaps  at  first  have  served  as  an  excuse  for 
his  ignorance  of  the  use  and  value  of  money,  but  to  the  end 
of  his  life  he  continued  to  waste  and  want,  meriting  the  nick- 
name of  "  Stringless  Purse,"  given  to  him  by  the  Danes,  who 
said  that  "silver  slipped  through  King  Christian's  fingers  like 
grain  through  a  sieve." 

Christian  crowned  in  Norway. — In  Norway  the  Council  of 
State  agreed  as  early  as  the  year  1450  to  accept  Christian  as 
their  king,  and  to  renew  the  Act  of  Union  with  Denmark. 
This  they  did  not  do  from  any  love  to  the  Danish  king,  but 
because  the  Norwegians,  who  were  a  peace-loving  people,  had 
hoped  in  this  manner  to  secure  for  their  country  the  quiet 
which  they  so  much  prized.  They,  however,  quickly  found 
out  their  mistake,  for  as  soon  as  Christian  had  been  crowned 
at  Trondhjem,  the  people  were  ordered  to  arm  themselves  for 
a  general  attack  of  the  Swedish  frontiers.  The  Norwegians  did 
not  venture  to  disobey  their  new  king's  orders  altogether,  but 
they  performed  their  duties  so  carelessly,  that  the  Swedes  had 
very  little  to  fear  from  them,  and,  therefore,  although  Christian 
sometimes  brought  great  armies  into  Sweden,  and  called  upon 
the  men  of  Norway  to  join  their  ranks,  he  was  never  able  to 
get  a  secure  footing  in  the  country.  The  Marshal  Karl 
Knudsson  was  indeed  more  than  once  driven  out  of  Sweden 


SCAND1NA  VI AN  HISTORY. 


by  Christian's  troops,  but  he  as  often  regained  his  power,  and 
was  at  length  crowned  king  in  the  year  1464.  On  the  death 
of  Karl,  the  Danish  king  made  another  attempt  in  1471  to 
gain  the  Swedish  crown  for  himself,  but  (as  we  have  seen  in 
the  last  chapter)  his  army  was  so  thoroughly  beaten  by  the 
Swedes  in  a  battle,  fought  at  Brunkebjerg,  near  Stockholm, 
that  he  lost  all  further  desire  of  invading  Sweden,  and  never 
again  turned  his  arms  against  that  kingdom. 

Christian's  want  of  money  often  led  him  to  do  things  un- 
worthy of  a  king  ;  and  his  neighbours  and  allies  soon  found 
that  there  was  scarcely  any  favour  he  would  not  grant  to  those 
who  could  pay  well  for  what  they  wanted  of  him.  Thus  the 
Hanse-traders  were  allowed,  in  return  for  a  large  sum  of 
money,  to  keep  the  trade  of  the  Baltic  in  their  own  hands,  and 
to  drive  off  Danish  vessels  as  if  they  had  no  right  to  carry 
foreign  goods  into  their  own  native  ports,  and  in  this  manner 
the  Germans  were  made  rich  at  the  expense  of  the  Danes. 
Besides  getting  money  by  these  and  many  other  unjust  means, 
King  Christian  had  the  bad  habit  of  spending  on  his  own 
pleasures  what  had  been  granted  to  him  for  other  purposes, 
while  he  never  scrupled  to  call  upon  his  people  to  pay  extra 
taxes,  whenever  he  was  more  than  usually  in  want  of  money. 

Union  of  Slesvig  and  Holstein. — The  old  royal  line  of 
Slesvig-Holstein  died  out  in  1459  w^tn  tne  Count-Duke  Adolf, 
whose  numerous  kinsmen  at  once  began  to  dispute  among 
themselves  in  regard  to  the  manner  in  which  his  heritage 
should  be  disposed  of.  King  Christian  sent  troops  into 
Slesvig,  and  claimed  the  right  of  taking  the  duchy  on  the 
ground  that  as  his  mother's  brother,  Count  Adolf,  had  died 
without  leaving  any  children  or  direct  heirs  in  the  male  line, 
the  fief  had  lapsed,  or  fallen  back  to  the  crown,  by  which  it 
had  been  granted  in  former  times.  These  claims  were  not 
disputed,  and  Christian  had  thus  the  good  fortune  of  recover- 
ing without  bloodshed  a  province,  whose  possession  had  for 
many  ages  been  made  a  subject  of  dispute  between  the  kings 
of  Denmark  and  the  dukes  who  had  held  it.  But  instead  of 
resting  satisfied  with  what  he  had  thus  easily  obtained,  he 
wanted  also  to  make  himself  master  of  Holstein. 

That  province  was,  however,  a  fief  of  the  German  empire, 


DENMARK  AND  SWEDEN  FROM  1450. 


and  as  Christian  could  not  hope  to  secure  it  unless  he  could 
induce  the  nobles  and  knights  of  Holstein  to  propose  to  the 
Emperor  that  he  should  receive  the  investiture,  he  resolved  to 
buy  their  favour  at  any  price.  They  were  not  slow  to  avail 
themselves  of  this  opportunity  to  increase  their  own  power, 
and  accordingly  they  took  care  to  make  themselves  almost  in- 
dependent of  their  future  ruler  before  they  would  promise 
him  their  support.  The  terms  to  which  he  agreed  were  that  in 
return  for  the  title  of  Count  of  Holstein  the  nobles  and  knights 
of  the  province  and  their  heirs  after  them  should  be  free  from 
paying  taxes  to  the  Danish  crown,  and  should  not  be  called 
upon  to  give  to  the  kings  of  Denmark  any  aid  in  money  or  men 
unless  with  their  own  entire  free-will.  Besides  granting  these 
and  other  privileges,  Christian  promised  for  himself  and  all  his 
successors  that  the  provinces  of  Holstein  and  Slesvig  should  re- 
main for  ever  united  ;  and  that  on  his  death  the  electors  should 
be  held  free  to  choose  a  successor  from  among  any  one  of 
his  heirs,  and  were  not  to  be  bound  to  take  the  next  king  of 
Denmark  to  be  Count-Duke  of  the  united  provinces. 

The  Danes  were  indignant  when  they  heard  the  terms  on 
which  the  king  had  gained  the  empty  title  of  ruler  of  Holstein, 
and  their  vexation  was  increased  on  finding  that  they  were  to 
be  made  answerable  for  his  rash  promises  of  paying  off  in 
money  all  other  claims  on  his  uncle's  heritage.  Amongst  others 
Count  Otto  of  Schaumburg,  who  was  a  kinsman  of  the  late 
Count-Duke  Adolf,  had  demanded  40,000  florins  before  he 
would  give  up  his  pretensions  to  the  Holstein  lands,  while  the 
king's  three  brothers  had  each  required  the  same  amount  with 
one-third  of  the  Oldenburg  and  Delmenhorst  patrimony  of 
their  family.  The  Danes  after  much  grumbling  and  delay  paid 
the  required  sums  of  money  to  their  king,  who,  as  usual,  spent 
them  on  his  own  pleasures,  and  left  the  poor  Jutlanders  to  be 
pillaged  by  Count  Otto's  troops,  and  to  buy  off  future  attacks 
by  heavy  fines. 

Christian  loses  the  Shetlands  and  Orkneys.- — King  Christian's 
bad  habits  of  thus  misapplying  the  money  entrusted  to  him  by 
his  people  had  in  one  instance  a  very  important  influence  upon 
territories  now  forming  part  of  the  British  empire.  It  happened 
that  when  his  daughter  Margaret  at  the  early  age  of  fifteen  was 


SC AX  DIN  A  VI AN  HISTORY. 


.married,  in  the  year  1469,  to  the  almost  equally  young  king, 
James  III.  of  Scotland,  her  dowry  .was  fixed  at  60,000  florins. 
The  Danes,  who  were  much  pleased  with  the  marriage,  gave 
King  Christian  the  money,  of  which  James  III.  received  only 
2,000  florins.  When  the  advisers  of  the  young  Scottish  king 
demanded  the  remainder  of  the  dowry,  King  Christian,  to  save 
himself  from  further  trouble,  gave  them  the  Shetland  and 
Orkney  Isles  to  be  held  in  pawn  till  he  should  be  able  to 
redeem  them  by  paying  58,000  florins.  But  as  the  time 
never  came  when  the  Danish  king  was  master  of  so  large  a 
sum  of  money  these  old  Norwegian  provinces  were  lost  to 
Norway,  and  have  since  formed  a  part  of  Scotland. 

The  same  misuse  of  money  continued  to  the  end  of  his 
reign  to  bring  Christian  into  discredit  with  all  classes  of  his 
subjects;  and  he  gave  special  offence  to  the  clergy  by  his 
conduct  in  regard  to  the  University  of  Copenhagen,  which  was 
not  opened  till  1479,  although  he  had  five  years  earlier  taken 
the  money  which  they  had  supplied  for  the  purpose,  and 
obtained  the  necessary  charter  from  the  Pope,  Sixtus  IV.  When 
at  length  Christian  caused  the  university  to  be  opened,  he 
could  only  endow  three  chairs,  and  therefore  all  students  who 
wished  to  learn  anything  more  than  divinity,  law,  and  physic, 
were  still  forced  to  go  abroad  and  seek  instruction  in  some 
foreign  school  of  learning.  Hence  the  University  of  Copen- 
hagen did  rot  prove  of  much  use  to  the  Danes  at  that  time, 
and  it  was  not  till  the  Reformation  that  its  teachers  could 
obtain  any  help  from  the  State,  or  that  students  could  receive 
proper  instruction  within  its  walls. 

King  Christian  and  his  queen  Dorothea  never  took  the 
trouble  to  learn  Danish,  or  to  follow  the  habits  of  the  country 
over  which  they  ruled,  and  during  the  reign  of  this  founder  of 
the  German  house  of  Oldenburg,  the  higher  classes  in  Denmark 
began  to  adopt  the  manners  and  customs  of  Germany,  and 
almos'.  gave  up  the  use  of  their  own  tongue. 


DENMARK  AND  SWEDEN  FROM  1450.  203 

PART  II. 
CROWN     BARTERED     FOR    FAVOURS. 

^  Hans, — 1481-1513. — On  the  death  of  King  Christian  I.,  in 
1481,  the  nobles  and  knights  of  Slesvig  and  Holstein  used 
their  rights  of  election  in  regard  to  the  succession,  by  de- 
claring that  they  were  not  prepared  to  receive  his  eldest  son 
and  heir,  Hans,  as  Count-Duke  of  their  united  provinces ;  and 
they  showed  such  a  marked  leaning  in  favour  of  the  second 
brother,  Prince  Frederick,  that  Hans  had  to  submit  to  hard 
terms  before  he  could  secure  their  votes.  The  Danish  nobles 
treated  the  young  prince  nearly  as  badly,  and  although  the 
common  people  in  Denmark  were  anxious  to  give  him  the 
crown  immediately  on  his  father's  death,  he  was  not  allowed  to 
ascend  the  throne  till  he  had  signed  a  very  hard  compact,  by 
which  the  higher  classes  assured  to  themselves  all  the  privileges 
they  cared  to  possess.  As  soon  as  Hans  had  been  crowned 
king  of  Denmark,  he  began,  like  his  father,  to  try  to  obtain 
the  other  Scandinavian  thrones  ;  and  although,  as  in  Christian's 
case,  the  Norwegians  were  anxious  to  have  nothing  more  to 
do  with  Danish  rulers,  they  had  no  native  princes  of  their 
own,  and  therefore  for  want  of  knowing  what  else  to  do,  they 
agreed  to  receive  Hans  as  their  king.  This  king  was  a  great 
favourite  with  his  Danish  subjects  on  account  of  his  preference 
for  the  customs  of  the  country,  and  for  his  use  of  the  Danish 
language,  which  he  spoke  like  a  true-born  Dane  ;  while  his 
parents  and  his  brother,  Prince  Frederick,  openly  boasted  of 
their  German  descent,  and  never  concealed  their  contempt  for 
the  Danish  people. 

Frederick's  ambition. — Although  King  Hans  loved  peace,  the 
disturbed  state  of  his  dominions  when  he  came  to  the  throne, 
and  the  ambition  of  his  brother,  drew  him  into  many  wars 
during  his  long  reign.  The  Queen-mother  had  always  shown 
great  partiality  for  her  younger  son,  Prince  Frederick,  and  not 
content  with  securing  for  him,  on  the  death  of  Christian,  a 
promise  from  the  nobles  and  prelates  of  Slesvig  and  Holstein 
that  he  should  be  proclaimed  joint  ruler  with  his  brother,  King 


204  SC AND IX A  VI AN  HIS  TOR  Y. 

Hans,  over  the  duchies,  she  obtained  for  him  the  right  of 
choosing  which  part  of  Slesvig  he  should  hold  as  his  own.  The 
duchy  had  been  divided  in  the  year  1480  into  two  parts,  the 
Segeberg  and  the  Gottorp  lands,  but  after  choosing  the  latter 
he  had  grown  dissatisfied  with  his  choice,  and  been  allowed  by 
his  brother  to  change  it  for  the  Segeberg  portion  of  Slesvig. 
This  indulgence  only  made  Frederick  bolder  in  asking  for 
greater  favours,  and  at  last  he  demanded,  as  a  right,  that  he 
should  be  allowed  to  rule  over  the  islands  of  Laaland,  Falster, 
and  Moen,  and  be  crowned  joint  king  over  Norway.  These 
demands  were,  however,  too  much  even  for  the  indulgent 
Hans,  and  refusing  to  listen  to  his  brother's  request,  he  called 
together  a  diet,  or  meeting  of  the  Lands-Thing  at  Kallunborg. 
and  with  the  full  assent  of  the  members  formally  rejected 
Frederick's  pretensions,  and  threatened  him,  in  case  he  should 
ever  renew  them,  with  the  forfeiture  of  the  lands  which  he  held 
in  Slesvig.  Prince  Frederick  was  forced  after  this  to  be  more 
careful  in  his  conduct,  but  his  restless,  discontented  nature  led 
him  to  foment  troubles  and  excite  wars  whenever  he  was 
allowed  to  use  his  influence  with  his  brother.  Thus  it  was 
chiefly  by  his  persuasions,  but  against  the  advice  of  the  Queen- 
mother,  that  the  king  resolved  upon  trying  to  gain  the  Swedish 
throne  by  force.  He  had  for  many  years  let  himself  be  satisfied 
by  the  promises  of  the  Swedish  Regent  and  his  Council  of 
State,  and  believed  their  declarations  that  they  would  offer  him 
the  throne  whenever  they  saw  that  the  moment  had  arrived  for 
proclaiming  his  authority  in  the  kingdom.  Fourteen  years 
passed  without  bringing  King  Hans  the  crown  he  coveted,  and 
then  losing  all  patience,  he  listened  to  the  advice  of  his  brother 
and  sent  a  large  army  of  German  hired  troops  into  Sweden. 
Success  attended  him  everywhere,  and  after  defeating  the 
Regent-Marshal  Sten  Sturc,  and  forcing  him  to  lay  down  his 
offices  and  give  account  of  his  government,  Hans  was,  in 
1495,  crowned  King  of  Sweden,  and  his  son  Christian  pro- 
claimed as  his  successor. 

This  easy  conquest  of  Sweden  did  not,  however,  prove  very 
lasting,  for  when  in  the  year  1500  Hans  suffered  a  signal 
defeat  in  the  Ditmarshes,  the  Swedish  nobles  seized  the  op- 
portunity of  freeing  themselves  from  the  power  of  Denmark, 


DENMARK  AND  SWEDEN  FROM  1450.  205 

and  having  taken  Sten  Sture  for  their  leader,  they  drove  the 
Danes  out  of  Stockholm,  renounced  their  allegiance  to  King 
Hans,  and  kept  his  queen,  Christina  of  Saxony,  a  prisoner  for 
three  years.  The  hatred  of  the  Swedes  towards  the  Danes 
now  showed  itself  in  all  parts  of  the  kingdom,  and  was  as 
great  amongst  the  higher  as  amongst  the  lower  classes.  The 
sudden  death  of  the  Marshal  Sten  Sture  in  1503,  when  he  was 
returning  from  Denmark  after  escorting  the  released  Queen 
Christina  to  her  husband's  court,  was  ascribed  to  poison  given 
to  him,  it  was  said,  by  the  orders  of  Prince  Frederick,  and  this 
event  increased  the  general  feeling  of  bitter  hatred.  When 
Hemming  Gade,  Bishop  of  Linkoping,  addressed  the  people  at 
Upsala  after  Sten  Sture's  death,  he  ended  his  speech  with  these 
words  :  "  The  Danes  are  a  nation  of  murderers  and  thieves  and 
have  been  so  from  all  time,  but  let  us  not  despair,  for  the 
Almighty,  who  has  saved  seven  parishes  in  the  Ditmarshes 
from  their  hands,  will  not  fail  to  rescue  a  whole  kingdom  !  " 

When  King  Hans  heard  what  had  happened  in  Sweden  he 
appealed  to  the  Emperor  and  Pope  to  punish  the  rebels  ;  but 
this  had  little  effect  in  changing  the  feelings  of  the  people 
towards  him,  and  as  he  was  unable  to  send  any  more  armies 
into  the  country,  he  was  obliged  to  submit,  and  he  never  again 
renewed  the  attempt  to  gain  the  Swedish  crown  by  force. 


PART  III. 

THE     BRAVE     DITMARSHERS. 

Defeat  of  Danes. — The  losses  of  King  Hans  in  the  Ditmarsh 
campaign,  to  which  we  must  now  return,  had,  moreover,  been  so 
great,  that  lie  had  no  wish  after  that  inglorious  defeat  to  enter  on 
new  wars.  The  inhabitants  of  the  Ditmarshes,  which  adjoined 
the  Hoisti'in  lands,  were  not  pure  Germans,  but  belonged  to 
those  Frisian  tribes  occupying  the  north-western  parts  of 
Germany  and  Holland  and  the  islands  near  the  Slesvig-Holstein 
coasts,  who  were  descended  from  the  ancient  Frisii,  known  to 
the  Romans  for  their  bravery  and  love  of  freedom.  The  same 
spirit  had  always  animated  these  people,  and  they  had  age  after 


206  SCANDINA  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 

age  made  many  a  gallant  stand  against  the  neighbouring  princes 
who  had  attempted  to  subdue  them.  Geert  the  Great  and  other 
rulers  of  Slesvig  and  Holstein  had  from  time  to  time  suffered 
defeat  at  their  hands,  and  although  the  Emperor  Frederick  had 
formally  given  over  their  lands  to  Christian  I.  of  Denmark  to 
be  joined  with  the  Holstein  territory,  the  Marshmen  had 
refused  to  own  themselves  subject  to  the  power  of  Denmark. 
When  Prince  Frederick  obtained  the  title  of  Duke  of  Slesvig- 
Holstein  he  had  called  upon  the  Ditmarshers  to  pay  taxes  to 
him,  and  to  do  homage  for  their  lands  ;  and  on  their  neglecting 
to  attend  to  his  summons,  he  had  induced  his  brother,  King 
Hans,  to  invade  the  Marshes  in  the  winter  of  the  year  1500. 

The  royal  army,  which  was  commanded  by  the  king  and 
the  Slesvig- Holstein  duke,  was  composed  of  an  unusually  large 
proportion  of  nobles  and  knights,  who  showed  their  contempt 
for  their  peasant  foes  by  going  to  the  attack  clad  in  their 
ordinary  hunting  costume,  and  carrying  only  light  arms.  But 
they  soon  found  how  ill  they  had  judged  the  Marshmen,  for 
instead  of  submitting  to  them,  as  they  had  expected,  these  men 
fought  desperately  whenever  they  came  in  contact  with  the 
royal  troops  ;  and  although  Meldorf,  the  chief  town  of  the 
Marshes,  was  taken  and  sacked,  and  the  inhabitants  killed 
with  great  cruelty,  only  a  small  number  of  the  Danes  and 
Germans  who  had  formed  part  of  the  invading  army  escaped 
alive  from  the  Marshes.  They  were  on  their  way  from  Meldorf 
to  Hejde,  on  the  afternoon  of  a  cold  winter's  day  in  the  year 
1 500,  when  they  found  their  advance  checked  by  a  line  of  earth- 
works thrown  up  against  a  dyke,  known  as  "  Dusind  Dyvel's 
Werff,"  near  Hemmingstedt,  and  defended  by  500  Ditmarshers 
under  their  leader,  Wolf  Isebrand.  The  royal  German  guard 
rushed  to  the  attack,  shouting  "  Hack,  churls,  the  guards  are 
coming  ! "  and  three  times  forced  the  Marshmen  to  retreat,  but 
they  as  often  rallied.  At  that  moment  the  wind  changed,  bring- 
ing a  thaw  with  it,  and  as  the  troops  were  struggling  on,  blinded 
with  the  sleet  and  snow  and  benumbed  with  cold,  the  sluices 
were  suddenly  opened  by  the  peasants,  when  the  water,  driven  on 
by  the  rising  tide,  soon  covered  the  marshes  and  swept  everything 
before  it.  Then  the  Ditmarshers,  who  were  accustomed  to  make 
their  way  quickly  through  the  marshes  by  the  help  of  their 


DENMARK  AND  SWEDEN  FROM  1450.  207 


poles  and  stilts,  threw  themselves  upon  the  invaders,  and  cut 
them  down,  or  pierced  them  dead  with  their  long  spears.  Six 
thousand  men  perished  in  this  way,  and  an  immense  booty  fell 
into  the  hands  of  the  victors,  including  seven  banners,  of  which 
the  most  noteworthy  was  the  Danish  national  standard  Danne- 
brog,  which  was  carried  in  triumph  to  Oldenworden,  and  hung 
up  in  the  church  as  the  greatest  trophy  of  the  victory. 

The  king  and  Duke  Frederick  barely  escaped  falling  into  the 
hands  of  the  Marshmen,  and  they  and  the  other  leaders  rated 
their  loses  in  money,  stores,  and  ammunition,  in  that  afternoon's 
defeat,  at  200,000  florins  or  guldens.  King  Hans  may  be  said 
to  have  owed  the  loss  of  Sweden  to  his  evil  fortune  in  the 
Marshes,  while  his  power  in  Norway  was  threatened  by  the 
same  cause ;  for  the  Norwegians  under  a  leader,  called  Knud 
Alfson,  made  several  attempts  to  throw  off  their  allegiance  to 
Denmark  after  they  learnt  the  result  of  the  king's  campaign 
against  the  Marshmen.  Hans  had  earnestly  begged  his  brother 
for  help  to  put  down  the  rebels,  but  when  the  duke  refused  to 
aid  him  unless  he  would  promise  to  have  him  proclaimed  as 
joint  King  of  Norway,  he  sent  his  young  son,  Christian,  to 
quell  the  disturbance,  and  refused  to  listen  to  Frederick's 
demands.  Prince  Christian  performed  his  task  so  thoroughly 
that  in  the  course  of  a  few  months  order  was  restored,  but  he 
at  the  same  time  used  his  powers  with  such  great  cruelty,  that 
before  he  left  the  kingdom  he  had  nearly  rooted  out  all  the  old 
Norwegian  nobles. 

The  only  war  undertaken  in  this  reign,  which  brought  any 
good  results  to  the  Danes,  was  that  carried  on  against  the 
Liibeck  Traders,  who  had  shown  great  insolence  to  King  Hans 
when  they  learned  that  he  had  granted  rights  of  trading  in  his 
dominions  to  English  merchants  as  well  as  to  the  German 
Hansers.  The  Llibeckers,  trusting  to  the  strength  of  their  ships, 
attacked  the  Danish  fleet  without  waiting  for  its  advance,  but 
the  admirals,  Soren  Norby  and  Otte  Rud,  beat  them  back,  and 
so  thoroughly  routed  them,  that  they  were  glad  to  accept  peace 
at  the  cost  of  paying  30,000  gulden  to  defray  the  expenses  of 
the  war.  Soon  after  this  one  successful  event,  Hans  died  at 
Aalborg,  in  the  year  1513.  With  the  Danes  he  had  always 
been  a  great  favourite,  and  even  among  the  Swedes  and  Nor- 


208  SCAA'DfNA  VIAN  HISTOR  Y. 

wegians  he  was  personally  liked  in  spite  of  their  hatred  of  the 
Danish  rule.  His  many  good  qualities  were  marred  by  violent 
fits  of  passion,  but  these  occurred  only  rarely,  and  were  thought 
by  his  subjects  to  be  due  to  short,  but  uncontrollable  attacks  of 
insanity. 


PART  IV. 

THE     FALL     OF    THE     STORES. 

Sweden  imder  Sten  Sture.^-VJo.  have  seen1  that  while  Chris- 
tian I.  of  Denmark  was  always  wasting  and  wanting  money, 
and  little  or  nothing  was  done  during  his  reign  to  improve  the 
condition  of  the  Danes,  the  Swedes  enjoyed  peace  and  pros- 
perity for  some  years  under  the  rule  of  their  marshal  or  chief 
governor,  Sten  Sture,  the  nephew  of  King  Karl  Knudsson. 
This  better  state  of  things  was,  however,  at  length  interrupted 
by  a  succession  of  bad  seasons  and  many  public  calamities, 
while  the  death  of  Christian  I.,  in  1481,  also  gave  rise  to  much 
disquiet  and  disturbance  in  the  country,  since  his  eldest  son 
and  successor,  Hans,  laid  claim  to  the  crowns  of  Sweden  and 
Norway  as  soon  as  he  had  made  himself  master  of  that  of 
Denmark.  The  Norwegians,  who  had  kept  themselves  as 
quiet  as  they  could  under  the  constant  turmoil  and  dissensions 
of  Christian's  reign,  came  forward  at  his  death  to  propose  to 
their  Swedish  neighbours  that  the  two  ancient  kingdoms  should 
unite  together,  and  that  counsel  should  be  taken  as  to  the 
terms  under  which  the  Union  of  Calmar  might  be  revived 
without  bringing  the  same  miseries  as  before  upon  the  northern 
lands.  But  these  negotiations  were  not  followed  by  any  active 
results,  and  soon  afterwards  the  Norwegians  allowed  themselves 
to  be  persuaded  to  accept  Hans  as  their  king.  The  Swedish 
nobles  had  by  that  time  become  dissatisfied  with  Sten  Sture, 
whose  popularity  with  some  of  the  lower  classes  had  also  been 
weakened  on  account  of  the  many  evils  which  had  befallen 
the  kingdom  during  the  latter  part  of  his  rule,  through  de- 
structive storms,  droughts  and  other  troubles,  as  the  plague, 

1  See  Chapter  xiv. 


DENMARK  AND  SWEDEN  FROM  1450. 


&c.,  for  \vhich  he  was  in  no  way  answerable.  Year  after  year 
the  Council  of  State  threatened  to  call  in  King  Hans  of  Den- 
mark, and  in  1497  they  carried  out  their  threats  by  proclaim- 
ing him  king  in  Stockholm  and  Upsala,  when  Sten  Sture, 
after  having  for  a  short  time  been  supported  by  the  peasants  of 
Dalekarlia,  had  to  submit  and  to  receive  the  Danish  king  as 
his  master.  Hans  made  his  solemn  entry  into  Stockholm, 
leaning  on  the  arm  of  Sture,  who,  when  the  king  asked  him 
jocosely,  "  If  he,  like  a  faithful  steward,  had  prepared  all  things 
for  his  coming,"  answered,  pointing  with  his  finger  to  the 
Swedish  nobles  gathered  round  them,  "  They  can  answer  that 
best,  for  they  have  done  all  the  baking  and  brewing  here  to 
their  own  liking  ! "  At  these  words  King  Hans  seemed  sud- 
denly to  be  seized  with  one  of  the  attacks  of  rage  to  which 
he  sometimes  gave  way,  and  answered  angrily,  "  And  you, 
Sten  Sture,  have  in  the  meanwhile  left  me  an  evil  heritage  in 
Sweden,  for  the  peasants,  whom  God  made  to  be  our  slaves, 
you  have  raised  into  masters,  and  those  who  ought  to  be  lords, 
you  have  tried  to  enslave." 

When  Hans  was  crowned  king  of  Sweden,  at  Stockholm,  in 
1499.  he  conferred  knighthood  on  all  the  nobles  who  had 
taken  part  in  his  proclamation,  and  it  was  said  that  his  success 
had  been  mainly  due  to  the  eagerness  with  which  the  wives  of 
these  nobles  had  sought  to  obtain  for  their  husbands  the  gold 
chain,  which  was  the  badge  of  their  knightly  rank,  and  could 
only  be  given  by  the  hands  of  the  sovereign. 

The  Stures  rule  Sweden. — Sten  Sture,  who  was  hated  by  the 
nobles  and  supported  by  the  peasants,  was  at  the  head  of 
every  outbreak  which  disturbed  the  rule  of  Hans,  and  when 
the  Danish  king  was  defeated  by  the  Ditmarshers  in  1500,  it 
was  he  who.  in  the  name  of  the  people,  declared  Sweden  to  be 
independent  of  Denmark.  At  the  death  of  Sten  Sture  in  1503, 
his  adopted  heir,  Svante  Sture,  was  in  accordance  \\ilh  his 
wishes,  made  marshal  and  regent  of  the  kingdom.  This  knight 
was  of  a  daring,  frank  nature,  and  it  was  said  of  him,  t!  at  lie 
would  take  no  man  into  his  service  who  winked  his  eyes  at  the 
stroke-  of  a  battle-axe,  and  that  he  would  rather  strip  l.is  coat 
off  his  back  than  leave  a  friend  and  brother-warrior  unre- 
warded. He  cared  more  kr  his  soldiers  than  fur  am  other 


2 1  o  SC AND  IN  A  VI AN  HIS  TOR  Y. 

class  of  the  nation,  and  as  long  as  he  governed  Sweden  there 
was  nothing  but  war.  He  and  his  learned  friend  Hemming 
Gade,  Bishop  of  Linkoping,  who  may  be  said  to  have  ruled  the 
land  between  them,  seemed  only  to  think  how  they  might  show 
their  hatred  to  Denmark,  and  although  during  this  time  there 
were  constant  meetings  between  the  nobles  of  the  two  countries 
to  settle  their  differences,  neither  people  had  any  rest  from  the 
hostile  and  piratical  attacks  of  the  other.  The  Hanse  traders 
sided  sometimes  with  the  one,  and  sometimes  with  the  other 
party,  and  there  was  neither  peace  nor  safety  to  the  poor  in  any 
one  of  the  three  northern  kingdoms. 

On  the  sudden  death  of  Svante  Sture  in  1512,  his  son,  Sten 
Sture  "  the  Younger,"  was  chosen  to  fill  his  place.  This  Sten 
was  the  noblest  and  best  of  the  Sture  race,  and  his  efforts  to 
relieve  the  people  as  far  as  he  could  from  the  taxes  which 
weighed  so  heavily  upon  them,  and  his  gallant  attempts  to 
secure  the  freedom  of  the  country,  endeared  him  very  greatly 
to  the  Swedes.  He  had,  however,  a  rival  and  foe  in  the  arch- 
bishop, Gustaf  Trolle,  who  through  hatred  of  the  Stures, 
proved  himself  a  traitor  to  his  country,  and  brought  about 
worse  troubles  than  any  that  had  yet  fallen  upon  the  unhappy 
land.  In  1518,  Sten  Sture  defeated  the  army  which  Christian 
II,  of  Denmark  had  brought  before  the  walls  of  Stockholm 
in  the  hope  of  forcing  the  Swedes  to  acknowledge  his  claim 
to  the  Swedish  throne.  After  the  battle  Christian  sought  an 
interview  with  the  regent,  and  demanded,  in  proof  of  his 
good  faith,  that  several  Swedish  hostages  should  be  sent  on 
board  a  Danish  ship  of  war  to  remain  there  until  he  had  re- 
turned in  safety  from  the  meeting.  The  regent  agreed  to  this, 
and  made  choice  by  their  own  consent  of  the  bishop,  Hemming 
Gade,  and  five  other  persons  of  noble  birth,  one  of  whom  was 
young  Gustaf  Kricksson  Yasa,  the  future  King  of  Sweden,  who 
had  served  in  the  recent  war  and  borne  the  royal  standard 
of  Sweden  in  the  battle  of  Stockholm.  While  the  meeting 
between  the  king  and  regent  was  taking  place,  the  Danish 
ship,  according  to  the  king's  orders,  weighed  anchor  and  sailed 
to  Denmark,  where  the  hostages  were  kept  in  prison  on  pre- 
tence that  they  were  rebels.  Christian,  on  his  return  to  Copen- 
hagen, obtained  a  bull  from  the  Pope  to  lay  Sweden  under 


DENMARK  AND  SWEDEN  FROM  1450.  211 

an  interdict,  and  to  excommunicate  Sten  Sture  and  all  who 
had  taken  part  with  him,  and  thus  ended  Christian's  pretended 
wish  to  be  reconciled  with  the  regent.  A  Danish  army  under 
the  command  of  Otte  Krumpe,  was  sent  into  Sweden  with 
orders  to  affix  to  all  church  doors  through  the  land  copies  of 
these  papal  decrees ;  and  although  the  Danes  were  defeated 
with  much  loss  by  the  Swedes  on  the  Aase  Sound,  their  greater 
forces  prevailed  after  a  time,  until  Sten  Sture's  death  in  1520 
placed  the  kingdom  completely  at  the  mercy  of  Christian  II. 
of  Denmark. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

DENMARK     FROM     I5OO. 

Christian  II.  of  Denmark — His  birth— Nearly  killed  by  an  ape — Strange 
mode  of  bringing  up — Placed  with  Metzenheim  Bogbinder — His  tutors — 
His  singing  in  the  choirs  of  Copenhagen — His  knowledge  of  Latin — 
His  father's  use  of  the  rod — Christian  sent  into  Norway — His  mode  of 
ruling  that  kingdom — His  love  of  the  poorer  classes — Death  of  Sten 
Sture  in  1520  makes  Christian  master  of  Sweden— His  cruel  massacre 
of  ninety  Swedish  nobles — Swedes  give  him  the  name  of  "Tyrant"— 
Some  of  his  good  works,  as  the  opening  of  poor-schools,  post-offices, 
inns,  &c. — Puts  down  Strand  rights — Tells  the  bishops  to  read  their 
Catechism — Favours  the  cultivation  of  flowers  and  fruits — Amager  Island 
peopled  by  Flemings — Encourages  Reformed  faith  for  a  time — Danish 
nobles  alarmed  for  their  safety — King's  Dutch  favourite,  Mother  Sigbrit 
— Dyveke  the  Dove  —The  dish  of  cherries — Torbe  Oxe  put  to  death — 
Nobles  send  in  paper  announcing  that  they  depose  Christian  ;  he  goes 
to  Holland  in  haste — The  war  with  the  new  king  Frederick  I. — Christian 
taken  prisoner;  put  in  a  dungeon  with  a  dwarf — His  death  17  years 
later — Frederick  I.  ;  his  conduct  and  reign — The  Reformers'  first  Danish 
versions  of  Scriptures — -Persecutions,  struggles — Counts'  Feud  for  three 
years  after  Frederick's  death— Christian  III.  succeeds  to  thrones  of 
Denmark  and  Norway — Puts  down  Catholic  Church  in  Denmark — 
Establishes  the  Lutheran  faith — Persecutions  of  Calvinisis  --Christian's 
death— Progress  of  country  during  his  reign. 

PART    I. 
CHRISTIAN'S    BRINGING    UP. 

Christian  II..  1513-1523.  -CHRISTIAN  II.  of  Denmark,  who 
was  the  only  son  of  King  Hans  and  his  queen.  Christina  of 
Saxonv,  was  born  at  Nyborg  in  1481.  This  prince,  whose  ca- 
pacity was  as  great  us  his  cruelty,  and  whose  learning  and  know- 
ledge of  business  far  exceeded  those  of  most  men  of  his  rank 
and  times,  was  brought  up  in  a  strange  nvinm-r.  considering  that 


DENMARK  FROM  1500.  213 

he  had  been  early  crowned  joint  king  with,  and  successor  to  his 
father,  and  was  looked  upon  by  most  Danes  as  the  rightful  heir 
to  the  thrones  of  Norway  and  Sweden,  as  well  as  to  that  of 
Denmark.  We  are  told  that  one  day  when  he  was  sleeping  in 
his  cradle,  a  tame  ape  lifted  him  up  and  ran  with  him  to  the 
flat  roof  of  the  castle,  where  the  creature  was  seen  dangling  and 
tossing  the  infant  up  and  down.  The  royal  servants  were  in 
great  alarm,  but  they  dared  not  call  out  or  follow  the  animal 
lest  he  might  throw  the  child  to  the  ground,  and  so  they  waited 
till  the  ape  of  its  own  accord  brought  him  within  reach  of  his 
nurse. 

The  king  and  queen  were  often  absent  on  long  journeys, 
going  from  place  to  place  to  visit  the  different  provinces  of 
their  kingdoms  ;  and  in  order  to  provide  for  their  little  son 
during  their  frequent  absences  from  the  Danish  capital,  they — 
strange  to  say — removed  him  from  the  court  and  the  care  of 
their  own  attendants,  and  placed  him  in  the  house  of  a  trades- 
man of  Copenhagen,  named  Hans  Metzenheim  Bogbinder.  The 
latter  name  is  thought  by  some  writers  to  have  been  only  a 
surname,  and  by  others  to  have  been  used  to  show  that 
Metzenheim's  business  was  that  of  a  book-binder.  He  was, 
however,  a  man  of  standing  in  the  city,  a  burgomaster  and 
councillor  of  state,  and  he  and  his  wife,  who  had  no  children 
of  their  own,  showed  great  love  for  their  charge. 

They  took  care  that  his  learning  should  be  well  attended  to 
by  engaging  the  services  of  a  good  scholar,  the  Canon  George 
Hinze,  under  whom  Christian  studied  daily  for  several  hours. 
When  he  grew  older,  the  king  placed  him  altogether  under  the 
care  of  Hinze,  who,  finding  that  he  could  not  trust  the  wild 
little  prince  when  he  was  absent,  thought  it  would  be  best 
never  to  let  him  out  of  his  sight,  and  he  therefore  took  him 
with  him  into  church  whenever  he  was  doing  duty.  As  Chris- 
tian had  a  good  ear  for  music,  and  a  fine  voice,  he  was  made  to 
sing  among  the  choristers  at  matins  and  vespers.  But  when 
King  Hans  was  told  that  the  heir  to  the  three  northern  king- 
doms was  singing  in  every  choir  of  Copenhagen,  he  flew  into  a 
great  rage,  and  said  very  bad  things  of  and  to  the  canon.  The 
poor  man  pleaded  in  his  excuse,  that  being  only  a  low-born 
peasant  and  a  priest,  he  did  not  know  what  was  the  right  thing 


214  SC AND  IN  A  VI AN  HIS  TOR  Y. 

to  do  for  a  prince,  and  was  in  constant  terror  lest  some  harm 
would  befall  the  royal  boy  when  he  saw  him  taking  part  in  the 
rough  games  in  which  he  had  great  delight.  The  king  forgave 
the  canon,  but  he  wrote  an  earnest  letter  to  his  kinsman,  the 
Elector  Joachim  of  Brandenburg,  begging  him  to  send  to 
Denmark,  without  fail,  a  stern  and  learned  man  who  would 
know  how  to  manage  the  unruly  young  prince.  The  Elector 
looked  about  him  for  the  right  kind  of  man,  and  soon  a  great 
scholar,  known  as  the  Magister,  or  Master  Conrad,  came  from 
Germany,  and  taught  his  pupil  to  such  good  effect,  that  Chris- 
tian for  the  rest  of  his  days  spoke  and  wrote  in  Latin  as  well 
as  the  most  learned  university-professors  of  his  times.  But 
although  the  young  prince  loved  learning  and  made  good  pro- 
gress, he  loved  his  own  amusements  better  ;  and  we  are  told  as 
a  proof  how  well  King  Hans  followed  Solomon's  precept  not  to 
spare  the  rod,  that  when  he  found  his  son  was  in  the  habit 
of  bribing  the  palace-watch  to  let  him  pass  freely  in  and  out 
whenever  he  wanted  to  join  the  entertainments  of  the  citizens, 
he  used  a  horse-whip  so  sharply  on  Christian's  back  and 
shoulders  as  to  force  him  to  go  on  his  knees  and  promise 
amendment.  But  at  last  the  time  came  when  the  father  could 
no  longer  use  the  rod,  and  in  1501  Hans  sent  Prince  Christian 
into  Norway  as  independent  governor,  or  viceroy  of  that 
kingdom. 

Christian  in  Norway. — It  was  here  that  the  prince  first 
showed  the  resolution  and  cruelty  of  which  he  was  capable,  for 
although  he  was  only  twenty  years  old  at  the  time,  he  put 
down  every  attempt  at  rebellion  with  such  quickness  and  stern- 
ness, that  the  nation  was  soon  nearly  crushed,  and  almost  every 
Norwegian  noble  or  knight  of  standing  killed  or  banished.  He 
seems  from  his  boyhood  to  have  had  a  hatred  of  the  nobility  gene- 
rally, and  although  he  knew  how  to  win  over  the  Danish  nobles 
and  prelates,  when  he  required  their  support  at  the  death  of  his 
father  King  Hans,  in  1513,  to  confirm  his  early  election  to  the 
throne,  he  usually  avoided  their  society,  and  chose  his  friends 
and  officers  from  among  the  lower  classes.  The  hard  terms 
which  the  Danish  Council  of  State  imposed  upon  him  as  the 
price  of  his  crown,  estranged  him  still  more  from  the  nobles, 
who,  in  the  new  charter  signed  by  Christian  at  his  coronation, 


DENMARK  FROM  1500.  2 1 5 

had  secured  for  themselves  so  many  privileges  as  to  leave  the 
king  no  real  power  in  the  state. 

Christian  on  his  accession  made  the  crown  of  Sweden  the 
great  object  of  his  ambition.  His  cause  was  supported  by 
Gustaf  Trolle,  the  primate  of  Upsala,  and  many  others  belong- 
ing to  the  ancient  nobility,  who,  in  their  jealousy  of  the  power 
enjoyed  by  the  Sture  family,  were  ready  to  proclaim  Christian 
King  of  Sweden.  But  the  greater  number  of  the  Swedes  were 
devoted  to  their  ruler,  Sten  Sture  the  younger,  and  looked  upon 
the  Danes  with  hatred  and  jealousy,  and  from  the  moment  King 
Hans  died  the  people  showed  very  clearly  that  they  would 
never  submit  willingly  to  a  Danish  ruler.  During  the  war  which 
broke  out  between  Sture  and  the  archbishop's  party,  Christian 
sent  his  armies  year  after  year  into  the  country,  but  he  gained 
no  footing  there  till  1520,  when  his  general,  Otte  Krumpe, 
surprised  Sten  Sture  by  marching  along  the  frozen  streams  and 
lakes  till  he  came  unawares  upon  the  Swedes,  and  gave  them 
battle  on  the  ice,  at  Aasund  in  West  Gothland.  The  Danes 
beat  the  Swedish  army,  which  dispersed  when  it  became  known 
that  their  leader  Sten  Sture  had  died  on  the  road  to  Stockholm, 
from  the  severe  wounds  which  he  had  received  at  Aasund. 
His  brave  widow  then  closed  the  gates  of  Stockholm  against 
the  Danes,  but  treachery  on  the  part  of  the  townspeople  forced 
her  to  submit,  and  then  by  the  help  of  the  Swedish  bishops 
Christian  was  able  to  make  himself  master  of  the  throne,  which 
he  had  been  so  eager  to  win. 

PART  II. 

THE    SWEDISH    CROWN    LOST. 

The  Blood  Bath. — In  the  autumn  of  1520  Christian  was 
crowned  at  Stockholm  with  great  pomp  ;  and  by  the  grace  and 
affability  of  his  manners  he  charmed  all  the  Swedes  who  took 
part  in  the  festivities,  which  were  held  in  honour  of  his  corona- 
tion. At  the  moment,  however,  when  the  Swedish  nobles 
thought  their  troubles  at  an  end,  the  king's  chief  officers  of  state, 
the  Westphalian  Didrik  Slaghoek  and  Jens  Beldenak,  Bishop 
of  Oclensee,  stepped  forward  before  Christian  while  he  was 


2 1 6  SCANDINA  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 

surrounded  by  his  court,  and  in  the  name  of  the  primate, 
Gustaf  Trolle,  demanded  reparation  for  the  wrongs  which  it 
was  pretended  the  archbishop  had  suffered  at  the  hands  of  Sten 
Sture  the  younger,  and  his  councillors,  in  having  been  deprived 
of  his  see.  Christian,  on  pretence  of  upholding  the  dignity  of 
the  Church,  required  to  know  the  name  of  all  who  had  signed 
the  act  of  deposition,  which,  as  he  well  knew,  had  been  passed 
in  consequence  of  the  primate's  treason  in  fighting  with  him  in 
former  years  against  his  own  countrymen.  The  document  was 
produced,  and  all  whose  names  were  attached  to  it  were  arrested 
on  the  spot,  although  it  was  shown  that  they  had  merely  acted  in 
conformity  with  the  orders  of  the  national  diet.  The  next  morn- 
ing early  they  were  brought  before  a  court,  composed  of  twelve 
ecclesiastics,  who  were  all  Swedes  excepting  Beldenak,  and 
were  asked  one  question  only  :  whether  men  who  had  raised 
their  hands  against  the  Pope  and  the  Holy  Roman  Church  were 
heretics  ?  As  they  were  forced  to  reply  in  the  affirmative,  they 
were  told  that  they  had  passed  judgment  of  death  on  them- 
selves. 

At  noon  on  the  same  day,  the  8th  of  November,  1520,  ninety 
persons,  belonging  chiefly  to  the  nobility,  but  including  a  few- 
burghers,  were  led  forth  into  the  great  market-place  of  Stock- 
holm, where,  closely  guarded  by  Danish  troops,  they  were 
beheaded  one  by  one  before  the  eyes  of  the  terror-stricken 
citizens.  The  first  who  suffered  was  Bishop  Mads  of  Strangnces, 
who,  as  the  axe  was  falling  on  his  head,  cried  aloud,  "  The  king 
is  a  traitor,  and  God  will  avenge  this  wrong  !  "  When  Krik 
Johansson  Vasa,  the  father  of  the  future  kings  of  Sweden,  was 
led  out,  a  messenger  from  Christian  came  to  him  to  offer  him 
pardon  and  grace.  "  No,"  he  cried,  '•  for  God's  sake  lei  me 
die  with  all  these  honest  men,  my  brethren  ! ''  and  he  laid  his 
head  on  the  block. 

A  heavy  storm  of  rain  fell  at  the  close  of  this  frightful 
butchery,  and  the  blood  streamed  along  the  streets,  and  gurgled 
and  splashed  up  from  the  wet  and  muddy  market-place.  Then 
Christian,  turning  his  back  on  the  scene  of  this  ghastly  spectacle, 
left  Stockholm  in  the  full  belief  that  nothing  would  hinder  the 
scheme  he  had  at  heart,  of  raising  the  burghers  and  peasants  to 
be  as  firm  supports  to  the  throne,  as  they  had  been  in  olden 


DENMARK  FR  OM  1 500.  2 1 7 

times.  But  the  lower  classes,  for  whose  welfare  he  pretended 
he  had  caused  the  death  of  the  nobles,  stunned  by  the  horror  of 
the  deed,  and  seeing  no  prospect  of  good  to  themselves  in  such 
a  frightful  outbreak  of  fury,  slunk  back  to  their  homes,  with 
feelings  of  hatred  and  fear  of  the  king,  whom  they  and  all 
Swedes  since  their  time  have  remembered  only  as  "the  Tyrant." 
It  has  been  well  said  that  the  "  Union  of  Calmar  was  drowned 
in  the  blood  bath"  of  the  8th  of  November,  1520,  for  from 
that  day  till  the  spring  of  1523,  when  Gustaf  Vasa  was  crowned 
king  of  Sweden,  the  Swedes  never  gave  up  their  determination 
to  release  themselves  from  their  Danish  bonds. 

Christian  II.  of  Denmark  had  some  great  and  noble 
qualities,  which  in  the  eyes  of  many  of  his  subjects  more 
than  atoned  for  his  occasional  outbreaks  of  cruel  fury.  He 
not  only  caused  several  new  and  good  laws  to  be  passed  in 
favour  of  the  trading  and  working  classes  of  the  country, 
but  he  showed  himself  at  all  times  anxious  to  diffuse  educa- 
tion amongst  the  very  lowest  of  his  subjects,  and  was  in  fact 
the  first  king  in  Northern  Europe  who  opened  poor-schools 
in  his  dominions.  In  his  earnest  desire  to  promote  the  educa- 
tion of  his  people  he  went  so  far  as  to  order  the  burghers 
of  Copenhagen  and  all  other  large  cities  in  the  three  Scan- 
dinavian kingdoms,  under  penalties  of  heavy  money  fines,  to 
compel  their  children  to  learn  to  read,  write,  and  cipher,  and 
when  they  grew  older  to  see  that  they  were  instructed  in 
some  trade.  He  also  caused  better  books  to  be  prepared 
and  printed  for  the  public  schools  ;  while  he  ordered  that  the 
children,  who  were  intended  for  the  learned  professions,  should 
not  be  boarded  with  unlearned  persons,  lest  in  their  earlier 
years  they  might  be  taught  evil,  which  they  could  never  again 
forget.  He  made  the  first  attempt  at  having  post-offices  in 
the  country  by  forming  a  band  of  post  runners,  who  both 
winter  and  summer  passed  between  Copenhagen  and  the 
chief  towns,  carrying  letters  for  which  they  were  paid  accord- 
ing to  the  number  of  miles  they  had  brought  them.  Then 
he  caused  way-side  inns  to  be  built  at  certain  distances  along 
the  roads,  and  ordered  that  if  travellers  received  damage 
from  the  badness  of  the  public  roads,  the  parishes  in  which 
they  lay  should  be  made  to  pay  for  it.  He  forbade  the 


2 1 8  SCAN  DIN  A  VIA  N  HIS  TOR  Y. 

nobles  and  higher  clergy  to  use  strand  rights,  or  to  seize,  as 
they  had  hitheato  done,  on  wrecks;  and  when  the  bishops  of 
Jutland,  who  drew  good  incomes  from  this  practice,  laid  com- 
plaints before  him  of  their  heavy  losses,  saying  there  was 
"  nothing  in  the  bible  against  taking  stranded  goods,"  his  only 
answer  was,  "  Let  the  Lord-prelates  go  back  and  learn  the 
eighth  commandment  by  heart !  "  In  the  same  manner  when 
the  clergy  begged  that  for  the  good  of  the  Church  he  would 
allow  witches  and  wizards  to  be  burnt  as  in  the  olden  times, 
and  not  be  let  oft"  with  a  whipping  as  he  had  decreed,  he 
asked  them  if  they  had  ever  read  the  sixth  commandment  ? 
It  was  a  pity  that  a  king  who  knew  so  well  how  to  reprove 
others  had  not  taken  that  and  other  commandments  to  heart. 
Christian  did  much  for  his  navy,  for  he  built  good  ships, 
put  down  pirates  on  the  Baltic,  and  made  the  Hansers  of 
Lu'beck  respect  his  authority.  He  caused  equal  weights  and 
measures  to  be  used  in  all  towns,  and  passed  many  laws  in 
favour  of  the  peasants,  to  whom  he  granted  the  right  to 
leave  the  lord  on  whose  lands  they  worked  whenever  they 
wished  it  and  could  prove  that  they  had  been  treated  unjustly. 
He  also  put  down  the  cruel  custom  of  selling  the  poor  peasants 
with  the  land,  like  beasts  of  the  field,  and  punished  masters 
for  ill-treating  their  servants.  The  growth  of  flowers  and  veget- 
ables was  made  the  great  object  of  his  care  ;  and,  to  teach  the 
Danes  how  to  manage  gardens  and  orchards,  he,  by  the  advice 
of  his  queen,  Elizabeth,  sister  of  Emperor  Charles  V.,  sent  for 
Flemish  gardeners  who  were  then  the  best  in  Europe.  These 
men  came  to  Denmark  in  1516  and  settled  in  Amager,  a 
small  island  in  the  harbour  of  Copenhagen,  which  they  soon 
changed  into  a  blooming  garden,  and  where,  from  that  time 
forth  they  and  their  descendants  lived.  The  Amager  peasants 
still  enjoy  the  rights  that  Christian  gave  them,  and  even  to  the 
present  day  they  retain  the  dress  and  habits  of  the  Flemish 
homes  of  their  forefathers,  brightening  up  the  old  market-place 
of  Copenhagen  with  their  quaint,  highly-coloured  costumes, 
and  supplying  the  citizens  with  the  finest  fruits,  flowers,  and 
vegetables  that  can  be  raised  in  the  long  cold  winters  and  short 
hot  summers  of  D.inish  Sjcellaml. 


DENMA  RK  FR  OM  1 500.  219 

PART  III. 
KING    CHRISTIAN    LOSES    ALL. 

Reformers  in  Denmark. — Christian  II.  gave  great  offence  to 
the  Danish  nobles  as  well  as  to  the  clergy  by  the  favour  which 
he  showed  towards  the  teachers  of  the  Reformed  faith,  and  in 
1520,  his  uncle,  Frederick  the  Wise  of  Saxony,  sent  to  Copen- 
hagen at  his  request  a  learned  doctor  named  Martin  Reinhard, 
to  preach  the  gospel  to  the  people.  As,  however,  this  preacher 
could  not  speak  Danish,  his  sermons  had  to  be  translated  from 
German  before  they  could  be  understood,  and  therefore  made 
so  little  impression  upon  the  hearers  that  King  Christian  wrote 
again  to  his  uncle,  begging  for  another  preacher,  and  asking 
whether  Luther  himself  would  not  come  to  Denmark  and  settle 
a  new  Reformed  Church  for  him.  But  the  great  Reformer  had 
other  things  to  do,  and  after  a  time  Christian  seemed  to  lose 
his  interest  in  the  new  faith.  At  any  rate,  as  soon  as  he  found 
that  a  Nuncio  was  coming  from  Rome  to  inquire  into  the 
justice  of  the  sentences  passed  upon  the  Swedish  nobles  who 
had  been  put  to  death  at  Stockholm  by  his  orders,  he  wrote 
to  the  Pope  to  promise  that  he  would  punish  heretics  in  his 
kingdom  ;  and  seemed  ready  to  pledge  himself  to  any  measure 
demanded  of  him  if  he  thought  that  it  might  ward  off  the  anger 
of  Rome,  of  which  he  stood  in  great  awe. 

The  Danish  nobles  rejoiced  at  the  downfall  of  the  Reformed 
party,  but  they  put  little  trust  in  the  king's  promises,  and 
feared  that  his  great  love  for  the  society  and  counsels  of  per- 
sons of  low  birth  would  some  day  bring  upon  themselves  the 
same  fate  as  that  which  had  befallen  their  Swedish  brethren. 
They  knew  that  his  chief  adviser,  a  Dutchwoman,  commonly 
called  Mother  Sigbrit,1  hated  all  persons  of  high  rank,  and  they 

1  This  woman,  who  had  first  made  Christian's  acquaintance  when  she 
and  her  young  daughter  Dyvcke  kept  a  tavern  at  Uergen  during  the  prince's 
viceroyalty,  had  unbounded  influence  at  the  Danish  Court,  and  to  sho\v  her 
contempt  for  the  nobles,  she  would  keep  the  highest  officers  of  State 
waiting  for  hours  in  the  cold  in  the  depth  of  winter,  while  she  amused  her- 
self by  watching  their  discomfort  from  the  windows  of  her  own  well-warmed 
rooms  in  the  palace. 


SCANDINA  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 


felt  that  as  long  as  she  and  her  kindred,  with  their  Dutch 
notions  of  freedom  and  equal  rights  for  all  classes,  kept  their 
power  over  the  king,  there  was  no  safety  to  be  hoped  for  by 
the  nobles  of  the  land.  This  Sigbrit,  who  had  for  years  been 
as  great  a  favourite  with  the  Flemish  queen  as  with  Christian 
himself,  was  the  mother  of  a  lovely  young  girl  known  as 
Dyvckc,  or  the  Dove,  whom  the  king  had  dearly  loved,  and 
whose  death  he  had  deeply  mourned.  As  Dyveke  had  died 
suddenly,  it  was  said  she  must  have  been  poisoned,  and  some 
persons  even  thought  that  she  owtd  her  death  to  eating  a  dish 
of  cherries,  sent  to  her  by  a  nobleman,  Torbe  Oxe,  who  it  was 
known  had  once  wished  to  marry  her.  The  king  did  not  rest 
till  he  had  had  poor  Torbe  brought  to  trial  on  this  and  other 
charges,  and  when  the  council  declared  they  could  see  no  just 
cause  of  offence  against  him,  Christian  swore  that  "  in  spite  of 
all  they  said,  Oxe  should  lose  his  head,  if  it  were  ten  times  as 
h;:rd  to  cut  off  as  a  bullock's.''  True  to  his  word,  the  king 
refused  to  listen  to  any  appeals  in  Oxe's  favour,  and  caused 
him  to  be  brought  to  the  block  and  executed.  After  this 
event  Mother  Sigbrit  rose  to  still  higher  power,  and  the 
Danish  nobles  began  to  look  about  them  to  see  how  they 
could  best  secure  their  own  safety.  Neither  they  nor  the 
bishops  liked  to  risk  their  persons  by  attending  the  annual 
Things,  and  soon  a  compact  was  made  between  these  two 
Orders  of  the  State  to  renounce  their  allegiance  to  the  tyrant. 

Fatal  glove. — One  day  in  the  April  of  the  year  1523  Chris- 
tian found  in  a  glove  which  he  was  about  to  draw  on  a 
rumpled  paper,  in  which  his  nobles  made  known  to  him  their 
purpose  to  call  in  his  uncle,  Duke  Frederick  of  Holstein,  to 
be  their  king.  Strange  to  say,  Christian's  courage  failed  him 
at  that  moment  when  he  most  needed  it,  and  although  the 
city  of  Copenhagen,  together  with  the  peasants  and  burghers 
in  all  parts  of  Denmark  and  even  of  Norway  were  in  his 
favour,  he  fled  in  haste,  and  setting  sail  with  his  family  and  all 
his  belongings,  betook  himself  to  Holland,  where  he  remained 
for  some  years,  and  where  three  years  later  his  gentle  queen 
died  among  her  own  countrymen  at  the  early  age  of  twenty-six. 

Had  Christian  stayed  amongst  his  subjects  he  would  per- 
haps have  put  down  the  rebellion  raised  against  him  ;  for  even 


DENMARK  FROM  1500. 


among  the  nobles  he  had  devoted  friends,  and  for  many  years 
his  able  commanders,  Henrik  Gjo,  Soren  Norby,  and  others, 
made  a  brave  stand  for  him.  In  Norway,  too,  where  he  landed 
in  1531  with  an  army  of  Dutch  and  Germans,  he  was  hailed 
with  joy,  but  at  that  moment,  his  uncle  Frederick  made  a 
treaty  with  Sweden  and  Liibeck,  both  of  which  powers  dreaded 
Christian's  return  to  Denmark.  By  their  joint  forces  his 
troops  were  beaten,  and  at  last  in  1532  the  unhappy  king, 
on  a  promise  of  safety,  gave  himself  up  to  his  uncle's  com- 
mander, Knud  Gyldenstjerne,  who,  instead  of  setting  him  at 
liberty  as  he  had  promised,  carried  him  to  the  Castle  of 
Sonderborg  on  the  island  Als,  and  had  him  confined  in  a 
dark  dungeon  below  the  tower.  In  this  wretched  prison,  to 
which  light  and  air  could  only  penetrate  through  a  small 
grated  window,  that  served  at  the  same  time  for  the  passage 
of  the  scanty  food  given  to  him,  Christian  spent  seventeen 
years  of  his  life  with  a  half-witted  Norwegian  dwarf  for  his 
sole  companion. 

On  the  death  of  Frederick  I.,  his  son,  Christian  III., 
showed  a  wish  to  release  the  unhappy  captive,  on  condition 
of  his  pledging  himself  to  retire  to  Germany.  But  the  Danish 
nobles  were  still  too  much  in  dread  of  Christian  II.  to  suffer 
him  to  be  set  at  liberty,  and  all  that  this  more  merciful  king 
could  do  was  to  have  the  prisoner  removed  to  Kallundbon; 
Castle,  where  he  was  permitted  to  pass  the  last  ten  years  01 
his  life  in  comparative  comfort,  and  where  he  died  in  1559. 
within  a  few  months  of  the  death  of  his  cousin  and  name- 
sake, Christian  III. 

Frederick  /.,  1523-1533. — We  must  now  go  back  to  the  time 
when  Christian  II.  left  Denmark,  and  the  nobles  found  them- 
selves free  to  choose  another  king  more  to  their  mind  than  the 
one  whom  they  had  put  down.  They  soon  made  choice,  as 
we  have  seen,  of  Christian's  uncle,  Duke  Frederick,  who  did 
not  hesitate  a  moment  in  accepting  the  crown  that  \vas  offered 
to  him  by  the  Council  of  State,  and  as  soon  as  he  felt  secure 
of  the  support  of  the  nobles  of  the  Danish  islands  and  of 
the  duchies  he  called  upon  the  Swede  and  Norwegians  t<> 
proclaim  him  king.  The  former  replied  that  they  had  alrend\ 
chosen  a  king  for  themselves,  viz.  Gustaf  Kricksson  Vasa  ;  but 


222  SCANDINA  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 

the  Norwegians  after  a  time  consented  to  do  homage  to  him, 
and  in  return  Frederick  declared  Norway  a  free  elective  mon- 
archy. From  the  moment  Frederick  I.  became  king  of 
Denmark  and  Norway  he  began  to  undo  everything  that  his 
nephew,  Christian  II.,  had  done,  and  one  of  his  first  acts  was 
to  give  orders  that  all  the  laws  which  had  been  passed  in  the 
last  reign  in  favour  of  the  peasants  should  be  publicly  burnt  in 
his  presence.  The  poor-schools  were  closed  all  over  the 
kingdom,  the  newly-printed  books  burnt,  and  the  Reformed 
preachers  driven  out  of  the  towns  and  forbidden  to  preach  the 
doctrines  of  Luther,  or  to  read  the  bible  to  the  people.  The 
Danish  and  Holstein  nobles  rejoiced  in  having  a  king  who 
agreed  with  them  in  thinking  that  it  was  "  contrary  to  good  order 
and  morality  "  to  raise  the  condition  of  the  peasants ;  and  the 
poorer  classes  found  themselves  worse  treated  and  more 
crushed  than  they  had  been  before  King  Christian  II.  tried  to 
lift  them  out  of  their  misery.  Frederick  and  the  nobles  looked 
upon  them  as  mere  slaves,  fit  only  to  work  like  the  beasts  of 
the  field ;  and  at  Court,  German  manners  and  the  German 
language  had  quite  taken  the  place  of  the  national  customs 
and  form  of  speech. 

Frederick  was  not  equally  successful  in  his  measures  against 
the  Reformers,  whose  influence  increased  rapidly  during  this 
reign,  and  was  mainly  due  to  the  effect  produced  by  the 
preaching  of  the  doctrines  of  Luther  in  Denmark,  in  the  year 
1520,  when  Hermann  Tast,  a  learned  priest  of  Husum  in 
Jutland,  stood  forth  in  the  market-place  of  that  town,  and  ex- 
plained many  passages  of  the  Scripture  to  the  people  in  accord- 
ance with  the  new  teaching  of  the  German  Reformers.  A  few 
years  later,  another  priest,  named  Hans  Tausen,  preached  with 
such  force  against  the  Church  of  Rome,  that  the  Danish  clergy 
took  alarm,  and  tried  by  all  means  in  their  power  to  put  down 
this  learned  and  dangerous  man.  Hut  each  time  that  he  was 
shut  up  by  his  bishop  the  people  flew  to  arms  and  clamoured 
till  they  secured  his  freedom.  At  length,  in  1530,  the  burghers 
in  Copenhagen  and  the  other  large  Danish  towns  began  in 
their  turn  seriously  to  ill-use  the  monks,  and  to  destroy  the 
images  and  ornaments  of  the  church.es,  until  the  soldiers  were' 
sent  to  put  an  end  to  the  riots.  I>ut  at  that  time  the  people 


DENMARK  FROM  1500. 


at  large  had  been  made  acquainted  with  the  Scriptures,  for 
in  1524  a  translation  of  the  New  Testament  into  Danish  had 
been  published  at  Antwerp  by  Hans  Mikkelsen,  a  learned  man 
who  had  left  his  home  and  lost  his  all  to  follow  King  Christian 
II.,  and  in  1529  a  second  and  better  version  was  given  to  the 
Danes  by  their  countryman  Kristen  Pedersen,  who  also  trans- 
lated the  Psalms  into  Danish.  The  Romish  clergy  had  called 
meetings  to  decide  what  was  to  be  done  to  put  down  these 
doctrines,  and  had  taken  strong  measures  against  the  preachers, 
but  all  to  no  purpose,  and  the  whole  Danish  nation  very  soon 
adopted  the  Reformed  faith,  although  it  was  not  till  the  year 
1536  that  this  form  of  religion  was  established  by  law  in 
Denmark. 

The  Count's  Fend. — There  had  been  many  troubles  in  the  land 
on  the  death  of  Frederick  I.  in  1533,  and  for  three  years  after 
that  event  the  country  was  without  a  king,  and  a  state  of 
great  disorder  reigned  in  the  land.  This  period  is  known  as 
the  time  of  "  the  Count's  Feud,"  for  it  was  taken  up  with  the 
wars  carried  on  under  the  command  of  Count  Christopher  of 
Oldenburg  to  recover  the  Danish  throne  for  his  cousin,  the 
poor  captive  king,  Christian  II.  But  besides  this  cause  of 
trouble  there  were  other  reasons  why  a  new  king  was  not 
chosen  at  once  on  the  death  of  Frederick  I.  The  nobles  and 
the  clergy  could  not  agree  on  the  question  of  religion ;  the 
former  wishing  to  take  Frederick's  eldest  son,  Christian,  to 
be  their  king,  and  the  latter  wanting  to  have  him  passed  over 
as  a  heretic,  and  the  younger  son,  Prince  Hans  chosen,  who 
was  only  a  little  child  at  the  time,  and  whom  the  bishops  hoped 
they  might  bring  up  in  their  own  faith.  Gustaf  Vasa,  King  of 
Sweden,  gave  much  help  to  Prince  Christian  by  carrying  on  war 
against  the  Liibeckers,  who  had  taken  the  part  of  the  count, 
chiefly  because  they  were  always  glad  to  have  an  excuse  to  fight 
against  Denmark  ;  but  when  they  found  that  Count  Christopher 
was  often  beaten  by  the  Swedes  and  by  Prince  Christian's 
friend  and  chief  commander,  Johan  Rantzau,  they  hastened 
to  make  peace,  and  leave  the  poor  deposed  king,  Christian  II.. 
to  his  fate. 


224  SCANDINA  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 


PART  IV. 
DENMARK    ACCEPTS     THE    PROTESTANT    FAITH.' 

Christian  III.,  1536-1559. — In  the  year  1536  Count  Chris- 
topher found  that  he  could  no  longer  keep  up  the  feud,  and 
the  nobles  and   clergy,  after  taking  good  care  of  their  own 
interests,  agreed  to  offer  the  crown  to  Christian,  who  in  the 
summer  of  that  year  made  his  solemn  entry  into  Copenhagen, 
and   was   proclaimed    king  under  the   title  of  Christian  III. 
We  may  here  notice  that  from  the  time  of  Frederick  I.  it  has 
been  the  custom  in  Denmark  to  have  no  names  but  these  two, 
Frederick  and  Christian,  in  the  succession  ;   each    new  king 
dropping  any  other  first  name  that  he  might  have  had  given 
him  in  his  baptism,  and  taking  up  either  that  of  Frederick  or 
Christian.      Christian's  first  act  was  to  summon  the  Council  of 
State  and  engage  the  members  of  that  body  to  stand  by  him 
in  the  execution  of  the  plans,  which  he  laid  before  them  for 
putting  down  the  power  of  the  Romish  Church.     The  bishops 
were  then  all  placed  under  arrest  in  one  day,  but  those  who 
pledged  themselves  not  to   oppose  the  king's  measures  were 
soon  released.     A  great  Thing,  or  general  diet,  was  called   in 
the    autumn   of  1536,  at  which   the    Lutheran   faith   was  pro- 
claimed  to   be    the    established   belief  of  Denmark,    and    the 
Roman   Catholic   bishops  were  deprived  of  their  rank,  titles, 
and  lands.     The   Lutheran  clergy,   who    were    placed    at   the 
head  of  the  new   church,  were  known  at  first  by  the  name  of 
"  over-seers,"   but   after  a  time  they  were   called  by    the   old 
title  of  "  bishop."     Every  parish  was  allowed  to  choose  its  own 
pastor,  or  vicar,  the   vicars  were  left  to  choose  their  provost, 
and  the  provosts  in   their  turn  were  free  t<>   make    choice    of 
their  own  bishop.      By  these  measures  the  Pope  lost  all  power 
in  the  Danish  kingdom.     The  nobles  on  the  o'.her  hand  gained 
a  great   increase   of  wealth   and  influence  in  the  land,   for  on 
one   pretence  or   oilier    they   obtained  a  large  number  of  the 
estates  which  had  been  held  by  the  Chuixh,  uhiie  at  the  sanii 
time  ihev  kept  down  the  clergy,  and   by  decrees  came  to  treat 
t  .em  as  persons  much  inferior  to  themselves  in  rank.      Chris- 


DENMARK  FROM  1500. 


tian  III.  was  a  just,  kind-hearted  man,  who  tried  to  do  his  best 
for  the  welfare  of  his  subjects,  and  he  showed  himself  anxious 
to  have  the  wealth  of  the  Romish  Church  used  to  endow  schools 
for  the  clergy  and  poorer  laity,  but  the  nobles  had  left  him  so 
little  power  in  the  state  that  he  could  not  effect  the  good  he 
had  so  much  at  heart.  A  few  Latin  schools  were  opened  for 
poor  scholars,  and  the  University  of  Copenhagen  now  first 
acquired  honour  and  credit  on  account  of  the  learning  of  its 
teachers.  Neither  the  king  nor  his  people  had,  however,  leamt 
much  charity  by  changing  their  faith,  and  very  soon  the  Lutheran 
Danes  proved  themselves  to  be  quite  as  cruel  to  all  who  differed 
from  them  in  religion  as  the  Catholics  had  been.  Whenever  a 
Calvinist  or  other  Reformed  teacher,  who  did  not  belong  to  the 
Church  of  Luther,  came  to  Denmark  and  began  to  preach,  he 
was  hunted  out  of  the  land  without  mercy,  as  if  he  had  been 
some  wicked  malefactor,  instead  of  a  minister  of  the  Church 
of  Christ. 

Progress  in  the  kingdom. — When  Christian  III.  died  on  New 
Year's  Day  1559,  in  the  first  year  of  our  Queen  Elizabeth's 
reign,  Denmark  was  in  a  more  settled  state  as  to  the  religious, 
foreign,  and  home  affairs  of  the  nation,  than  it  had  been  for  a 
very  long  time.  The  troubles  in  the  Church  seemed  to  be  at 
an  end,  and  in  every  parish  in  the  country  the  doctrines  of 
I  ,uther  were  preached  from  the  pulpits,  and  all  men  and  women 
from  the  highest  to  the  lowest  could  read  their  bibles  in  their 
own  tongue.  The  convents  and  monasteries  were  indeed  still 
held  by  the  nuns  and  monks,  who  had  not  been  willing  to 
leave  them,  for  King  Christian  had  shown  a  tender  regard  to 
the  feelings  of  those  who  desired  to  end  their  days  within  the 
walls  of  the  cloisters,  in  which  they  had  taken  their  vows  before 
the  establishment  of  the  Lutheran  religion  in  the  kingdom. 
Hut  by  degrees  one  convent  after  the  other  was  closed,  and 
Denmark,  like  Sweden  and  Norway,  became  a  thoroughly 
Protestant  land. 

Great  progress  had  been  made  in  learning  during  Christian's 
reign.  The  laws  had  been  revised  with  much  care  ;  equal 
iveights  and  measures  were  brought  into  use  in  Norway  and 

Q 


2  26  SCAN  DIN  A  VfAN  HIS  TOR  Y. 

Denmark  ;  one  form  of  money  was  made  legal  for  both  countries, 
and  a  more  just  standard  was  fixed  for  the  amount  of  silver  to 
be  put  into  the  coinage.  Trade  began  to  flourish  again,  and 
the  Danes  now  went  in  their  own  ships  to  buy  the  wares  in 
foreign  ports,  which  for  a  long  time  had  been  brought  to  them 
hy  rne  rich  German  traders  of  Hamburgh  and  Liibeck. 


CHAPTER   XVII. 

SWEDEN     BETWEEN    I52O    AND    1568. 

Custaf  Eriksson,  known  as  Vasa — His  birth,  family,  early  school  life — His 
treatment  as  a  hostage — His  escape — His  wanderings  among  the  miners 
of  Dalekarlia — His  various  dangers  and  adventures — His  ill-treatment 
at  the  hands  of  the  peasants — Their  repentance  and  subsequent  choice 
of  him  for  the  "  Chief  Man  " — The  beginning  of  his  army — His  first 
flag  made  of  the  silk  of  the  Danish  traders — His  troops  encounter  the 
Danes — Bishop  Beldenak's  surprise  at  their  hardiness — Defeat  of  the 
Danes — Gustaf's  letter  to  the  princes  of  Europe — The  fate  of  his  mothei 
and  sisters — Christian  II.  tries  to  avenge  himself — Norby's  conduct  to  his 
prisoners — Complete  submission  of  Sweden  to  the  authority  of  Gustaf, 
who  is  crowned  king  in  1523 — State  of  Stockholm — Gustaf's  want  o) 
money — His  conduct  to  the  clergy — Favours  the  Reformers — Puts  down 
the  power  of  the  Romish  Church — Seizes  on  its  revenues  and  lands — 
The  peasants  support  him  against  nobles  and  prelates — Submission  of 
all  classes — Gustaf's  restless  activity  in  controlling  the  affairs  of  all  his 
subjects — His  troubles  in  his  family — His  division  of  his  kingdom — 
Erik  succeeds  —  Erik's  strange  character  and  conduct — His  extravagance 
and  caprice — His  suit  to  Queen  Elizabeth — His  gifts  to  her — His  inten- 
tions towards  Earl  Leicester — War  with  Denmark — Erik's  cruelty  to  the 
Stures — His  fits  of  insanity — His  submission  to  Karren  Mannsdatter — 
His  marriage  with  her — His  deposition — His  imprisonment  and  the 
cruel  usage  he  met  with — His  .sufferings — His  death  by  poison — The  fate 
of  his  v>  ife  and  children. 

PART   I. 
GUSTAF    VASA    FREES    SWEDEN. 

Gustai'iis  Vasa,  1523-1560. — AFTER  the  Blood  Bath  at  Stock- 
holm, in  15.20,  Christian  II.  returned  to  Denmark  in  full  confi- 
dence that  he  had  nothing  further  to  fear  in  Sweden.  Hi,-, 
course  had  everywhere  been  marked  by  cruelty.  At  Jonkoping 
he  ordered  the  captain  of  the  castle  to  be  executed,  together 
with  his  children  ;  and  at  Nydala  he  caused  the  abbot  and 
some  uf  the  servitors  of  his  abbey  to  be  drowned. 

Q   2 


22S  SCANDINA  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 

No  open  resistance  had  followed  these  acts,  but  at  the  very 
moment  that  Christian  thought  himself  most  secure  in  his 
power  over  Sweden  Gustaf  Eriksson  Vasa,1  the  future  deliverer 
of  his  country,  was  already  undermining  the  Danish  dominion. 
This  remarkable  man,  who  was  born  in  1496,  was  the  son  of 
Erik  Johansson,  one  of  the  victims  in  the  Blood  Bath  of  Stock- 
holm, and  had,  as  we  have  seen  in  a  former  chapter,  been 
unjustly  made  captive  and  carried  to  Denmark  by  the  orders 
of  Christian  when  he  fell  into  his  power  as  a  hostage  during 
the  king's  conference  with  Sten  Sture  the  younger.  Gustaf 
had  been  kept  a  prisoner  for  more  than  a  year  at  Kallo  in 
Jutland,  under  the  custody  of  his  own  kinsman,  Erik  Bauer; 
and  after  his  escape  in  1519,  he  fora  time  found  safety  at 
Liibeck.  In  the  spring  of  1520  he  ventured  to  return  to 
Sweden,  where  he  was  forced  to  assume  various  disguises,  and 
to  labour  on  farms  and  in  the  mines  of  Dalekarlta,  to  escape 
the  notice  of  the  Danish  authorities,  by  whom  a  price  had 
been  set  on  his  head.  The  Swedish  peasants  themselves  at 
first  often  threatened  his  life,  declaring  that  they  meant  to  be 
true  to  the  king  as  long  as  "  he  left  them  herrings  and  salt 
enough  for  themselves  and  their  families."  But  by  degrees 
friends  and  supporters  sprang  up  around  him,  and  his  con- 
fidence in  his  countrymen  was  seldom  abused.2  Even  when 

1  This  king,  known  to  foreigners  as  Gustavus,  was  called  Gustaf  by  his 
own  countrymen.  The  name  Vasa  was  never  used  by  Gustaf  himself,  nor 
had  it  belonged  to  any  of  his  ancestors,  surnames  not  having  been  adopted 
by  the  Swedish  nobles  at  that  period.  Some  writers  have  derived  the  name 
from  the  estate  of  Vasa  in  Upland  ;  but  others,  with  apparently  better 
reason,  believe  it  to  have  been  taken  from  the  arms  of  the  family,  which 
were  a  fascine  (or  vase),  such  as  was  used  in  storming  ;  the  black  colour 
of  which  was  changed  by  King  Gustaf  into  gold  (or),  which  led  to  the  idea 
that  his  cognizance  had  been  a  sheaf  of  ripe  earn. 

-  Once  lie  only  escaped  falling  into  the  hands  of  the  Danes  by  conceal- 
ing himself  under  a  load  of  hay,  and  when  the  soldiers  thrust  their  spears 
into  the  mass  and  wounded  him  in  the  side,  he  still  kept  silence,  while  his 
lailhful  guide,  to  account  for  the  appearance  of  the  blood  which  had  trickled 
ironi  Ir.s  wound  If)  the  frozen  snow-covered  road,  em  his  horse  in  the  leg. 
The  barn  at  Kankhytta  in  I'alekarli i,  where  he  thra-!:  ••!  oaN  :  the  spot  in 
the  woods  near  Marnaas,  where  he  lay  three  clays  n::d  nights  concealed 
under  a  felled  pine  trunk,  and  was  fed  by  the  peasants  of  the  district  ; 
and  many  other  places  rendered  memorable  by  his  labours,  are  still  pre- 
^crved  anil  honoured  in  S.vedeu. 


SWEDEN  BETWEEN  1520  AND  1568.  229 

the  peasants  refused  to  listen  to  the  first  public  appeal  which 
he  made  to  them  at  the  Mora  Stone,  they  did  not  betray  him  ; 
and  when,  soon  after  he  had  left  the  district  by  their  request, 
the  particulars  of  the  Blood  Bath  were  related  to  them  by  a 
noble  of  Upland,  named  Jon  Michelsson,  they  repented  of 
their  conduct,  and  wished  Gustaf  Eriksson  were  amongst 
them  again.  By  Michelsson's  advice  they  sent  swift  "Skid"- 
runners  or  skaters  to  seek  Gustaf  by  night  and  by  day,  and 
soon  these  men  traced  him  to  a  mountain  pass  between 
Sweden  and  Norway,  just  as  he  was  about  to  cross  the  frontier, 
and  brought  him  back  to  Mora,  where  at  the  King's  Stone 
peasants  from  all  the  neighbouring  districts  assembled  and 
elected  him  to  be  their  "chief  man  in  the  kingdom."  The 
superstitious  country  people  regarded  it  as  a  favourable 
omen  that  whenever  Gustaf  had  addressed  them  the  wind 
had  blown  from  the  north,  which  had  always  been  looked 
upon  in  Sweden  as  a  proof  that  "  God  would  give  the  matter  a 
good  ending."  Sixteen  powerful  men  were  then  chosen  for  his 
body-guard,  and  soon  a  few  hundreds  more  Dalesmen  offered 
him  their  services  as  foot-followers.  From  this  small  beginning 
of  power  the  Swedish  chroniclers  date  the  commencement  of 
his  reign,  although  the  Danes  and  their  adherents  in  Stock- 
holm continued  long  after  these  events  to  reckon  Gustaf 
Eriksson  and  his  followers  as  a  company  of  lawless  rebels. 
In  the  spring  of  1521  he  suddenly  made  his  appearance  at  the 
Royal  Copper  Mines  above  Rattwik,  where  he  seized  upon  the 
money  belonging  to  the  crown  and  on  the  wares  of  the  Danish 
traders  settled  there,  and  carried  off  the  royal  baiiiff,  Christopher 
Olsson,  whom  he  entrusted  to  the  safe-keeping  of  one  of  his 
faithful  Dalesmen.  He  then  divided  the  money  and  goods 
among  his  followers,  who  made  their  first  flag  out  of  a  piece  of 
silk  taken  from  the  Danes ;  and  presenting  himself  before  the 
miners  while  they  were  attending  mass,  he  made  them  a  long 
address,  in  which  he  told  them  of  all  the  evil  that  the  Danes 
were  working  in  the  land,  and  obtained  a  promise  of  support 
from  them,  as  well  as  from  the  Dalesmen  of  Dalekarlia. 

The' Danes  fatally  driven  out. — In  the  meantime  the  authority 
of  the  Danish  king  was  maintained  at  Stockholm,  where  Did- 
nk  Slaghcek  ruled  under  the  name  of  Regent  of  Sweden,  and 


230  SCANDINA  VI AN  HIS  TOR  Y. 

was  supported  by  the  influence  of  the  archbishop,  Gustaf  Trolle, 
and  some  of  the  Swedish  nobles  and  chief  citizens.  As  soon 
as  they  learnt  what  had  been  going  on  among  the  Dalesmen, 
they  sent  an  army  of  8,000  Germans  to  attack  Gustafs  fol- 
lowers, whom  they  found  assembled  on  the  banks  of  the  Dal, 
near  the  Brunnbak's  Ferry.  When  the  Danish  commander, 
Bishop  Beldenak,  saw  the  Dalesmen  pouring  a  shower  of 
arrows  with  a  strong  and  steady  aim  across  the  little  stream,  he 
inquired  where  all  these  men  had  come  from,  and  where  they 
could  get  food  in  such  a  desolate  region  ?  On  hearing  that  they 
were  so  hardy  that  they  drank  water  only,  and  if  necessary 
could  make  shift  to  live  on  bark-bread,  he  is  reported  by  the 
chroniclers  to  have  said  :  "  If  this  be  so,  my  comrades,  let  us 
retreat  while  we  may,  for  the  devil  himself,  let  alone  ordinary 
mortals,  could  never  subdue  a  people  who  can  live  on  wood 
and  water  ! "  The  victory  at  the  Brunnbak,  while  it  dispirited 
the  Danes,  gave  the  turning-point  to  Gustafs  fortunes ;  ami 
by  encouraging  the  peasantry  to  declare  themselves  for  him, 
actually  placed  the  whole  of  Northern  Sweden  in  his  power  ; 
and  soon  20,000  men  were  gathered  round  his  standard  at 
Vesteraas,  where  the  Dalesmen  with  their  long  pikes  killed  a 
large  number  of  the  horses  and  men  of  the  enemy.  But  the 
moral  effect  of  their  success  was  even  greater  than  the  havor 
which  they  wrought  in  the  Danish  ranks,  for  the  news  of  tin- 
defeat  which  the  Danes  met  with  in  trying  to  defend  the  town 
depressed  the  king's  troops  and  brought  fresh  support  to 
Gustafs  cause.  One  castle  after  another  was  taken  by  force 
or  stratagem,  and  soon  there  was  no  Danish  leader  left  in 
Sweden  to  fear  but  Christian's  able  commander,  Severin  or 
Soren  Norby,  who  by  his  gallant  defence  of  Stockholm  gave 
a  temporary  check  to  Gustafs  arms.  The  feeling  against  the 
Danes  in  Sweden  had,  however,  risen  so  high  that  nothing 
could  any  longer  resist  the  determination  of  the  people  to 
free  themselves.  Christian  II.  had  never  paused  in  his  course 
of  cruel  persecution  ;  and  when  the  news  reached  Sweden  in 
1522  that  many  of  the  widows  and  children  of  the  victims  in 
the  Blood  Bath  had  died  in  the  horrible  dungeons  in  which  the 
king  had  thrown  them  when  he  carried  them  to  Denmark,  the 
fury  of  the  Swedes  knew  no  bounds.  Gutsaf  Eriksson's  mother 


SWEDEN  BETWEEN  1520  AND  1568. 


and  his  two  sisters  had  been  among  the  first  who  sank  under 
the  cruel  treatment  to  which  they  were  subjected  •  and  in  the 
letter  which  he  addressed  to  the  Pope,  the  Emperor,  and  all 
Christian  princes,  in  1522,  in  explanation  of  the  reasons  that 
had  induced  him  and  his  followers  to  rise  against  the  power  of 
the  King  of  Denmark,  Gustaf  openly  accused  the  king  of 
having  poisoned  the  unhappy  Swedish  ladies  who  had  died  in 
the  Danish  prisons.  When  Christian  learnt  the  purport  of 
Gustaf's  appeal,  he  sent  orders  to  Norby  to  murder  every 
Swedish  noble  whom  he  could  seize  upon,  but  the  Danish 
commander  let  his  prisoners  escape  whenever  he  could,  saying 
it  was  "  better  that  men  should  have  a  chance  of  getting  a 
knock  on  the  head  in  battle  than  to  wring  their  necks  as  if 
they  were  chickens." 

Other  Danes  had  not  such  scruples,  and  the  Junker  Thomas, 
commandant  of  Abo,  obeyed  his  king's  orders  so  exactly  that 
he  was  able  to  send  a  report  to  Denmark  of  the  success  with 
which  he  had  celebrated  another  Blood  Bath.  This  officer, 
however,  met  his  own  death  in  the  following  year,  when  in 
making  an  attempt  to  relieve  Stockholm  he  and  all  his  ships  fell 
into  the  hands  of  Gustaf,  and  he  was  hanged  on  a  tree  in  sight 
of  his  own  men.  The  news  of  King  Christian's  deposition  and 
flight  from  Denmark  in  April  1523  was  followed  in  Sweden  by 
a  meeting  of  the  diet  at  Strangnas,  where  on  the  23rd  June  in 
that  year  Gustaf  Eriksson  was  proclaimed  king  of  Sweden,  and 
the  union  with  Denmark,  which  had  existed  for  one  hundred 
and  twenty-six  years,  for  ever  dissolved.  During  that  short 
interval  between  the  deposition  of  Christian  and  the  proclama- 
tion of  Gustaf,  one  town  after  the  other  had  been  relieved  of 
its  Danish  garrison,  Calmar  and  Stockholm  were  taken,  and 
the  provinces  of  Skaania,  Blekingen,  and  Hal'land  included 
by  force  of  arms  and  through  the  help  of  treaties  in  the  king- 
dom of  Sweden,  of  which  they  formed  an  integral  part,  both 
by  their  geographical  position  and  the  national  character  of  the 
people.  Before  the  close  of  the  year  Finland  had  declared 
its  willingness  to  receive  Gustaf  as  its  king,  and  thus  all  the' 
Swedish  dominions  were  brought  under  the  power  of  the  one 
man  who  centred  in  himself  the  wishes  and  hopes  of  the 
entire  nation. 


232  SCAN  DIN  A  VI AN  HIS  TOR  Y. 


PART  II. 
GUSTAF    RULES    WITH    A    STRONG    HAND. 

Gustaf  Vasa  crowned. — When  Gustaf  made  his  entry  into 
Stockholm  in  the  midsummer  of  1523,  he  found  a  ruined  and 
desolate  capital  in  which  half  the  houses  were  destroyed. 
and  where  the  people  were  broken  down  by  the  miseries  of 
the  past  siege  and  the  effects  of  foreign  rule.  There  was  no 
money  to  carry  on  the  expenses  of  government,  while  the 
nobles  and  prelates,  who  were  the  only  classes  able  to  help, 
had  made  themselves  free  of  all  taxation  and  service  to  the 
crown  except  in  cases  of  foreign  invasion.  The  Hanse 
leaguers,  who  had  also  secured  to  themselves  entire  freedom 
of  trade  in  return  for  the  services  which  they  had  rendered 
the  Swedes  against  Denmark,  pressed  their  claims  for  payment 
on  account  of  the  arms  and  provisions  which  they  had  given 
Gustaf  during  his  siege  of  Stockholm,  and  whichever  way  he 
looked,  money  difficulties  seemed  to  oppose  his  efforts  to  put 
order  into  the  affairs  of  the  kingdom.  Then  it  was  that  he 
determined  at  one  blow  to  crush  the  power  of  the  higher  clergy 
— who  had  made  themselves  hateful  to  the  people  by  their 
wish  to  uphold  the  union  with  Denmark — and  to  relieve  his 
own  wants  and  those  of  the  State  at  the  expense  of  the 
Church. 

Gustaf  had  early  acquainted  himself  with  the  nature  of  the 
new  doctrines  preached  by  Luther,  and  when  the  brothers  Olaus 
and  Laurentius  Petri,  who  had  studied  at  Wittenberg,  returned 
to  Sweden  in  1519,  and  began  teaching  the  people  the  Reformed 
faith,  he  had  given  them  his  support  as  far  as  he  was  able. 
When  he  became  king  he  appointed  Olaus  to  a  church  at 
Stockholm,  and  made  the  younger  brother  professor  at  Upsala, 
and  soon  afterwards  chose  for  his  chancellor  the  provost 
Laurentius  Andreoe,  who  had  renounced  Catholicism  and  trans- 
lated the  New  Testament  into  Swedish.  He  also  caused  a 
public  disputation  to  be  held  between  the  supporters  of  the  old 
and  the  new  dogmas,  and  paid  no  attention  to  the  Papal  letter 
presented  to  him  by  Bishop  Brask,  in  which  Adrian  II.  ordered 


SWEDEN'  BETWEEN  1520  AND  15* 


a  court  of  inquisition  to  be  opened  in  every  bishopric  of 
Sweden  for  the  punishment  of  heretics  and  the  condemnation 
of  Luther's  works.  Gustaf's  attempt  to  exact  the  payment  of 
taxes  for  the  purpose  of  defraying  the  expenses  of  the  late 
war,  led  to  disturbances,  and  he  had  several  times  to  quell  con- 
siderable revolts  which  had  arisen  out  of  his  determination  to 
put  down  the  power  of  the  Church.  Two  Anabaptists,  called 
Knipperdolling  and  Rink,  had  caused  great  disorders  in  Stock- 
holm, where  they  had  led  their  followers  on  to  destroy  the 
images  in  the  churches  and  ill-treat  the  clergy,  but  Gustaf 
ordered  them  to  be  driven  out  of  Sweden  ;  and  when  the 
people  declared  that  they  wished  to  keep  to  the  faith  of  their 
fathers,  he  assured  them  that  he  had  no  desire  to  set  up  new 
doctrines,  and  that  all  he  wanted  was  to  do  away  with  abuses, 
lie  nevertheless  completely  crushed  the  power  of  the  Romish 
clergy  at  the  diet  held  at  Vesteraas  in  1527,  when  in  the  open- 
ing address,  read  by  the  chancellor,  Laurentius  Andreae,  he  laid 
before  them  a  statement  of  the  necessities  of  the  kingdom,  and 
made  the  members  clearly  understand  that  unless  money  was 
freely  given  by  the  nobles  and  the  rich  prelates,  he  would  at  once 
resign  the  regal  title  and  retire  into  private  life.  "  It  was  im- 
possible," the  king  said  in  this  speech,  "  to  govern  a  people  who 
threatened  to  come  out  against  him  with  battle-axe  and  bent 
bow  whenever  he  began  to  inquire  into  any  act  of  treason,  and 
who  sent  the  bound  and  scorched  staff  from  house  to  house  to 
summon  men  to  take  up  arms,  as  had  been  the  custom 
of  their  forefathers  in  Sweden  in  bygone  times,  whenever 
their  kings  had  done  anything  that  displeased  them.1  After 
pointing  out  all  that  the  people  owed  to  Gustaf,  and  setting 
before  the  assembly  the  disorders  of  the  kingdom,  the 
chancellor  inquired  of  the  prelates  what  they  had  to  say  in 
reply.  Then  Bishop  Brask  on  behalf  of  the  clergy  answered 
that  he  and  all  his  brethren  knew  the  duty  that  they  owed  the 
king,  but  they  could  not  forget  that  they  were  bound  in  all 
spiritual  matters  to  obey  the  Pope,  without  whose  express 
command  they  could  allow  of  no  changes  in  regard  to  reli- 

1  It  had  been  customary  in  olden  times  to  eall  together  al-1  the  able- 
bodied  fighting  men  of  a  district  by  sending  from  house  to  house  a  charred 
branch,  to  which  was  hung  a  loop  of  cord  for  fastening  it  to  the  house-door. 


234  SCANDINAVIAN  HISTOR  Y. 

gious  teaching  nor  consent  to  any  lessening  of  the  rights  and 
revenues  of  the  Church  ;  and  concluded  by  saying  that  if  in  this 
respect  any  evil-minded  men  had  taught  heretical  doctrines  or 
given  bad  advice  they  must  be  put  to  silence  and  punished." 

When  the  bishop  had  ended  his  speech,  Gustaf  demanded 
whether  the  Council  of  State  and  the  nobles  considered  this 
a  proper  reply  to  his  demands  ?  On  hearing  from  Ture 
Jonsson,  who  was  chosen  to  speak  for  them,  that  they  knew 
of  nothing  better  to  say,  he  sprang  to  his  feet,  exclaiming — 
"  Then  I  will  no  longer  be  your  king.  If  such  are  your  thoughts 
I  do  not  wonder  at  the  treason  and  discontent  of  the  common 
people,  who  blame  me  if  they  do  not  get  rain  or  sunshine  when 
they  want  either.  Your  aim,  as  I  see,  is  to  be  my  masters,  and 
to  set  monks,  priests,  and  other  creatures  of  the  Pope  over  my 
head.  Who  would  be  your  king  on  such  terms,  think  you  ? 
not  the  worst  soul  out  of  hell !  So  see  to  it ;  give  me  back  what 
I  have  spent  of  my  own  fortune,  and  I  will  go  away  from  you 
all,  and  never  return  to  my  ungrateful  country."  At  the  end 
of  this  angry  speech  Gustaf  paused,  and  bursting  into  tears, 
rushed  from  the  hall. 

Effect  of  Gustaf 's  threat. — -There  was  great  confusion  in  the 
district  when  it  was  known  that  King  Gustaf  threatened  to 
leave  Sweden,  and  the  peasants,  collecting  in  large  numbers. 
cried  out  that  "  if  the  lords  could  not  make  up  their  minds  what 
ought  to  be  done,  the  Bondar  would  find  a  way  to  help  them- 
selves." The  bishops  were  the  first  to  give  in,  and  on  the 
third  day  Magnus  Sommar,  Bishop  of  Strangnas,  came  forward 
and  said  that  "the  servants  of  the  Church  had  no  wish  to  be 
protected  at  the  risk  of  destroying  the  peace  of  the  kingdom." 
The  nobles  under  Ture  Jonsson  held  out  till  the  Bondar 
threatened  to  go  to  the  king,  and  propose  to  him  that  they 
should  all  be  sent  back  to  their  own  castles  ;  and  then  they 
too  came  in  a  deputation  to  the  palace  with  promises  of  sub- 
mission. But  Gustaf  returned  only  hard  answers  to  tht- 
messages  sent  to  him,  and  it  was  not  until  all  his  proposals  had 
been  agreed  to  by  each  order  of  the  diet  that  he  yielded.  The 
bishops,  who  from  that  time  forth  were  never  again  admitted 
into  the  Council  of  State  in  Sweden,  where  they  had  before 
taken  the  highest  places,  drew  up  a  protest  against  these 


SWEDEN  BETWEEN  1520  AND  1568. 


attacks  on  the  rights  of  the  Church,  in  a  meeting  held  with 
locked  doors  in  the  church  of  St.  ./Egidius,  and  concealed  the 
writing  under  the  stone  floor  of  the  chancel,  where  it  was  acci- 
dentally found  many  years  afterwards.  At  the  same  time  they 
all  signed  publicly  a  memorial  in  which  they  said  "  they  were 
content  to  be  poor  or  rich  according  to  the  king's  good 
pleasure." 

Conduct  to  the  Clergy. — Gustaf  carried  out  the  Resolutions 
passed  at  Vesteraas  with  much  severity,  taking  castles  and 
lands  from  the  prelates,  and  visiting  harshly  every  act  of 
hesitation  on  their  part  in  giving  them  up.  Reformed  teachers 
were  permitted  to  preach  in  Swedish  to  the  people,  "  as  long  as 
they  used  the  Scriptures  only,  and  had  nothing  to  do  with 
false  miracles  and  such-like  fables."  As  soon  as  he  had  thus 
secured  the  disposal  of  church  property,  and  received  the  sub- 
mission of  the  nobles,  Gustaf  celebrated  his  coronation,  and 
took  active  steps  to  put  down  the  disturbances  which  had 
broken  out  amongst  the  Dalesmen,  whose  leaders  he  punished 
with  death.  The  outbreak  had  in  the  first  place  been  caused 
by  the  king  having  taken  one  bell  from  every  church  for  the 
payment  of  the  debt  still  due  to  the  Liibeckers  on  account  of 
their  help  against  the  Danes,  but  by  degrees  other  causes  of 
dissatisfaction  were  added  ;  and  for  fifteen  years  his  government 
was  disturbed  by  opposition  to  the  new  faith,  by  attempts  on 
the  part  of  Christian  II.  and  his  friends  to  recover  the  northern 
crowns,  which  led  more  than  once  to  friendly  alliances  between 
Gustaf  of  Sweden  and  Frederick  I.  of  Denmark,  and  by  the 
treachery  and  discontent  of  the  nobles.  But  in  1542  the  king 
so  thoroughly  crushed  the  rebels  in  Smaaland  that  after  the 
murder  of  their  leader,  the  peasant,  Nils  Dacke,  peace  was 
never  again  disturbed  during  his  reign.  And  so  firmly  was  the 
power  of  the  crown  established,  that  in  1544  Gustaf  found 
himself  able  to  secure  the  passing  of  a  law  by  which  the 
throne  was  declared  hereditary  in  his  family. 

Gustaf  s  restless  activity.—  From  that  lime  till  the  end  of  his 
life  he  never  ceased  his  labours  for  the  improvement  of  his 
kingdom,  and  so  untiring  was  his  industry  and  his  determina- 
tion to  be  master  in  all  things,  that  there  was  no  subject,  how- 
ever trivial,  that  he  did  not  consider,  or  even  decide  upon.  He 


236  SCANDINAVIAN  HISTORY. 

put  such  order  in  the  finances  of  the  kingdom  that  he  left  at 
his  death  a  rich  treasury,  with  a  standing  army  of  15,000  men, 
and  a  well-appointed  fleet.  He  overlooked  everything  himself; 
writing  with  his  own  hands  letters  to  the  clergy  in  regard  to 
the  management  of  their  houses  and  lands,  and  even  rating 
them  soundly  for  any  proceeding  in  their  parishes  of  which  he 
did  not  approve.  He  corresponded  with  the  overseers  of  the 
mines  and  forests  in  regard  to  their  expenses  and  the  best 
ways  of  controlling  the  works  under  their  care  ;  with  the  nobles 
in  regard  to  the  management  of  their  estates  ;  with  the  peasants 
as  to  the  proper  manner  in  which  they  should  rule  their  houses 
and  families,  plough  their  land  .and  tend  their  cattle  ;  and  with 
his  own  relations  and  personal  attendants  on  the  subject  of 
their  dress  and  domestic  affairs.  In  regard  to  religious  matters 
he  had  early  shown  himself  very  jealous  of  interference  from 
anyone,  whether  Pope,  bishop,  or  noble ;  but  when  he  had 
crushed  the  clergy  and  the  nobles  he  proved  himself  the 
hardest  taskmaster  the  Church  had  ever  yet  known  in  Sweden. 
Thus,  whenever  the  Reformed  clergy  showed  any  sign  of  in- 
dependence, he  threatened  to  deprive  them  of  all  rank  and 
power  in  the  State  ;  and  while  he  exacted  the  tithes  to  the 
utmost,  he  kept  the  parish  priests  well  provided  with  useful 
directions  for  making  the  greatest  profit  out  of  the  land  which 
they  were  allowed  to  hold  under  the  crown. 

Swedish  trade  owed  its  origin  to  him,  and  when  he  found 
that  the  people  living  in  the  sea-ports  did  not  take  an  active  part 
in  the  American  and  Indian  trade  which  he  desired  to  encourage, 
he  sent  them  harsh  reproofs,  and  threatened  to  come  himself 
and  see  what  they  were  doing.  No  kind  of  business  or  trade 
escaped  his  notice,  and  he  enjoined  upon  the  master-workmen, 
on  penalty  of  a  fine,  to  engage  apprentices  and  to  teach  them 
with  care  and  patience.  He  drew  up  regulations  for  the  main- 
tenance of  greater  cleanliness  in  the  towns,  and  ordered  roads 
to  be  made  from  north  to  south  through  the  kingdom.  He 
took  pains  to  see  that  schools  were  maintained  in  the  several 
parishes,  and  gave  a  new  character  to  the  university  teaching  at 
Upsala.  And  he  even  caused  a  new  rhyming  chronicle  to  be 
drawn  up,  for  the  sake,  as  he  himself  said,  of  "  giving  a  true 
amount  of  the  events  recorded  by  the  Danish  chroniclers. 


SWEDEN  BETWEEN  1520  AND  1568. 


and  to  keep  up  in  the  minds  of  his  people  the  remembrance  of 
the  conduct  of  the  Danes  during  their  rule  in  Sweden." 

Family  Troubles. — This  good  and  great  king,  to  whom  his 
family  owed  its  reputation,  and  Sweden  the  place  which  it 
afterwards  acquired  among  the  other  nations,  was  troubled  in 
his  Jater  years  by  the  quarrels  and  evil  conduct  of  his  sons, 
and  the  frequent  insurrections  of  his  subjects.  He  had  been 
three  times  married,  and  Erik,  the  eldest  and  only  son  of  his 
first  queen,  Katherine  of  Saxe  Lauenburg,  had  by  his  half- 
insane  and  excitable  acts  caused  him  the  greatest  anxiety. 
Knowing  the  violence  and  caprice  of  Erik's  nature,  Gustaf 
determined  to  make  his  younger  sons  independent  of  him,  and 
by  his  will  he  left,  as  hereditary  duchies,  Finland  to  Johan  the 
next  in  age,  Ostgothland  to  Magnus,  and  Soedermanland  and 
Vaermland  to  his  youngest  son  Karl,  who  was  then  a  child. 
Soon  after  the  king  had  received  the  sanction  of  his  council 
and  the  diet  for  this  subdivision  of  the  kingdom,  he  died,  at 
the  age  of  sixty-four,  worn  out  with  care ;  and,  in  accordance 
with  the  wishes  which  he  had  expressed,  he  was  buried  within 
the  chancel  of  the  cathedral  church  of  Upsala. 


PART  III. 

QUEEN     ELIZABETH'S     SUITOR. 

1'lrik,  1560-1568. — At  the  time  of  Gustaf 's  death,  his  eldest 
son  and  heir,  Erik,  was  about  to  start  on  a  voyage  to  England 
to  make  a  formal  suit  to  our  Queen  Elizabeth.  He  had  caused 
a  large  fleet  and  a  number  of  men-at-arms  to  be  given  to  him, 
in  order,  as  he  said,  that  he  might  make  a  gallant  appearance 
at  the  English  Court,  but  many  persons  thought  that  Erik  had 
only  wanted  an  excuse  for  securing  a  powerful  force  with  which 
he  might  attempt  to  seize  upon  the  crown  of  Sweden  with- 
out waiting  till  it  came  to  him  by  heritage.  The  news  of  his 
father's  sudden  death  reached  him  while  he  was  reviewing  his 
ships  and  men  at  Elfsborg,  and,  disbanding  the  troops,  he 
hurried  back  to  Stockholm  and  caused  himself  to  be  pro- 
claimed king.  Erik  was  at  that  time  twenty-seven  years  of 


238  SCANDINA  VI AN  H1STOR  Y. 

age,  handsome,  graceful,  eloquent,  accomplished  in  manly 
exercises,  a  good  linguist,  able  to  write  well  in  Latin  as  well  as 
Swedish,  a  poet,  musician,  and  painter,  and  skilled  in  astrology 
and  the  mathematical  sciences  of  his  times.  But  all  these 
advantages  were  marred  by  a  strangely  capricious  disposition, 
and  by  sudden  and  violent  outbursts  of  temper,  which  at  times 
amounted  to  insanity. 

Erik  soon  began  to  quarrel  with  his  brother  Johan,  who  had 
married  Katerina  Jagellonica,  sister  of  King  Sigismund  II.  of 
Poland.  In  consequence  of  these  disputes  Johan  retired  to 
Poland  and  took  part  with  that  country  in  a  war  against 
Sweden,  during  which  he  was  made  a  prisoner  and  carried 
back  to  his  own  country,  where  King  Erik  caused  him  and  his 
wife  to  be  shut  up  in  the  castle  of  Gripsholm,  where  they 
were  kept  for  four  years  under  close,  although  not  harsh, 
constraint. 

During  the  first  few  years  of  his  reign  Erik  wasted  all  the 
money  that  his  father  had  left  in  the  treasury  in  preparations 
for  his  coronation,  and  in  his  various  absurd  missions  in  search 
of  a  wife.  Besides  the  new  regalia  which  he  ordered  from 
London  and  Antwerp,  and  chests  of  jewels  and  ornaments  of 
all  kinds,  he  caused  a  number  of  strange  animals,  which  had 
never  before  been  seen  in  Sweden,  to  be  brought  into  the 
country  for  the  public  games  with  which  he  intended  to  amuse 
the  people.  We  learn  from  the  lists  given  of  these  animals 
that  rabbits  were  at  that  time  unknown,  or  still  uncommon  in 
Sweden,  for  they  are  included  with  lions  and  camels  among 
the  rare  and  curious  creatures  to  be  exhibited. 

Erik's  Wooing. — As  soon  as  his  coronation  was  over,  Erik 
resumed  his  preparations  for  gaining  the  hand  of  Queen  Eliza- 
beth, to  whom  lie  sent  ambassadors  with  costly  gifts,  amongst 
which  we  hear  of  eighteen  piebald  horses,  and  several  chests 
of  uncoined  bars  of  gold  and  silver,  strings  of  oriental  pearls, 
and  many  valuable  furs.  Besides  making  these  presents  he 
gave  money  to  his  envoy,  Gyllenstjerna,  with  orders  to  bribe 
the  English  Councillors  of  State,  and  to  "  have  the  queen's 
favourite,  Earl  Leicester,  put  out  of  the  way,  even  if  it  should 
cost  10.000  dollars."  During  the  preceding  year  his  intentions 
towards  the  earl  had  been  more  honourable,  for  he  then 


SWEDEN'  BETWEEN  1520  AND  1568.  239 

directed  Gyllenstjerna  to  inform  Leicester  that  "  his  king  was 
ready  to  offer  him  battle  in  his  own  royal  person  either  in 
Scotland  or  France."  The  English  courtiers  were  thrown  into 
great  perplexity  when  they  heard  that  King  Erik  had  em- 
barked with  a  great  fleet  from  Sweden,  and  was  coming  to 
press  his  suit.  But  they  might  have  spared  themselves  all 
anxiety,  for  Erik,  with  a  changeableness  that  had  already 
begun  to  assume  the  character  of  insanity,  suddenly  gave  up 
his  plan  of  going  to  England.  At  the  same  time  he  sent  one 
messenger  to  Scotland  to  see  if  Queen  Mary  was  as  hand- 
some as  people  had  reported,  another  with  a  betrothal  ring 
to  Princess  Renata  of  Lorraine,  the  grand-daughter  of 
Christian  II.  of  Denmark,  and  a  third  with  a  contract  of 
marriage  already  drawn  up  to  the  Princess  Christina  of 
Hesse,  for  whose  hand  he  had  more  than  once  sued.  Lest 
Queen  Elizabeth  should  feel  herself  aggrieved  by  these  pro- 
ceedings, he  sent  another  embassy  to  England  to  assure  her 
that  the  cares  of  his  State  had  alone  kept  him  away,  and  that 
he  was  not  in  earnest  in  regard  to  the  offers  of  marriage  which 
he  had  made  to  the  Hessian  princess.  The  queen  accepted 
his  apologies  and  kept  his  gifts,  and  so  ended  this  Swedish 
wooing,  to  the  relief  of  Elizabeth  and  her  advisers. 

War  between  Sweden  and  Denmark. — While  Erik  was  in- 
dulging in  all  this  folly  and  extravagance,  new  wars  were 
springing  up  in  all  directions.  From  1563  to  1570  Sweden 
and  Denmark  were  engaged  in  a  very  disastrous  contest,  both 
by  sea  and  land,  which  had  taken  its  origin  in  the  foolish 
vanity  of  the  two  rival  young  kings,  Erik  XIV.  and  Frede- 
rick II. ,  who  had  each  assumed  the  three  northern  crowns  in 
their  national  arms.  This  Scandinavian  Seven  Years'  War  was 
marked  by  great  atrocities  on  both  sides.  The  Danes  were 
seldom  the  victors  at  sea,  although  they  had  good  commanders, 
but  during  the  latter  part  of  the  struggle  they  often  met  with 
signal  successes  on  land  after  their  able  genera],  Daniel  Rantzau, 
led  them  on.  Rant/,au's  death,  while  besieging  Varberg  in 
1569,  put  an  end  to  this  war,  which  cost  both  parties  nearly  an 
equal  number  of  lives,  and  embittered  the  mutual  jealousy  of 
the  two  nations,  which  under  C.ustaf  had  begun  to  diminish. 

Erik's  insane  suspicion  led  him  to  destroy  his  best  friends, 


240  SCANDINA  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 

and  on  pretence  that  the  losses  which  the  Swedes  had  sus- 
tained in  the  war  were  due  to  the  treason  of  Nils  Sture,  who 
had  the  chief  command  of  the  army,  he  deprived  that  noble 
of  all  his  dignities  and  had  him  publicly  proclaimed  a  traitor. 
After  this  he  for  a  time  took  him  back  into  favour  and  even 
sent  him  on  a  second  mission  to  the  Princess  of  Lorraine, 
but  he  soon  afterwards  caused  him  and  all  the  other  surviving 
members  of  the  family  of  the  great  Stures  to  be  tried  at 
Upsala  and  condemned  to  death  on  the  charge  of  treason. 
It  is  believed,  however,  that  Nils  Sture  was  innocent,  as  all 
rhe  documents  connected  with  the  trial  were  destroyed  by  the 
king's  evil  adviser,  Goran  Persson. 

Erik's  Insanity. — Before  the  council  had  signed  the  death 
warrant,  Erik,  in  a  fit  of  insane  fury,  rushed  into  the  prison  of 
Xils  and  stabbed  him  to  the  heart,  and  after  looking  on  while 
his  soldiers  completed  the  murder,  he  ran  to  the  cell  in  which 
the  aged  Svante  Sture  and  some  members  of  his  family  were 
confined,  and,  throwing  himself  on  his  knees  before  him,  cried 
out,  "  For  God's  sake  forgive  me  what  I  have  done  !  "  "I 
will  forgive  all  except  the  taking  of  my  son's  life  ;  if  any  wrong 
comes  to  him  you  must  answer  for  it  to  me  before  God,"  replied 
the  old  man.  "  Then,"  cried  King  Erik,  "  you  too  must  be 
cut  down;"  and  rushing  forth,  followed  only  by  a  few  of  his 
soldiers,  he  made  his  way  towards  the  neighbouring  woods. 
One  of  these  men  soon  returned  with  a  message  that  all  the 
prisoners  except  the  knight  Sten  were  to  be  put  to  death. 
There  were  two  persons  who  bore  this  name,  and  owing  to  the 
doubt  as  to  whom  the  order  referred  to,  both  escaped  the  fate 
which  fell  upon  their  comrades  in  prison.  Goran  Persson, 
after  these  murders  were  completed,  sought  and  obtained  the 
signatures  of  the  Council  of  State  to  death  warrants  against  all 
who  were  slain,  and  then  first  made  known  what  had  hap- 
pened. Erik  in  the  meanwhile  wandered  about  the  woods  in 
a  state  of  wild  fury,  no  one  daring  to  try  and  induce  him  to 
take  food  or  rest,  but  at  the  end  of  three  days,  a  poor  girl, 
named  Karren  or  Kptherina  Mannsdattcr,  who  had  more  in- 
fluence over  him  than  any  other  person  and  whom  he  after- 
wards married,  persuaded  him  to  return  to  Vpsala.  A  fortnight 
later  lie  made  his  public  entry  into  Stockholm,  repeating  peni- 


SWEDEN  BETWEEN  1520  AND  1568.  241 

tential  psalms  with  clasped  hands,  and  with  his  eyes  turned 
towards  heaven. 

Erik  marries  Karen, — A  prolonged  fit  of  insanity  followed 
this  outbreak,  and  Erik  tried  by  gifts  to  the  families  of  his 
victims  to  make  atonement  for  the  evil  he  had  done.  In  1567, 
whilst  the  war  was  going  on  against  Denmark  and  Poland,  and 
the  Swedes  were  being  beaten  in  Livonia,,  the  king  married 
Katherina  Mannsdatter,  and  caused  her  to  be  crowned  with 
great  pomp.  About  this  time  Duke  Magnus  went  out  of  his 
mind  on  being  forced  by  the  king  to  sign  the  death-warrant  of 
their  brother  Johan,  and  for  the  rest  of  his  life  had  to  be  kept 
in  confinement.  But  the  duke  escaped  the  fate  intended  for 
him,  and  soon  he  and  Karl  took  up  arms  against  Erik,  de- 
manding the  surrender  to  them  of  his  unworthy  favourite, 
Goran  Persson,  who  was  known  to  have  been  the  king's  chief 
adviser  and  helper  in  all  the  acts  of  cruelty  of  which  he  had 
been  guilty.  The  dukes  advanced  on  Stockholm,  and  soon 
made  themselves  masters  of  all  the  approaches  to  the  castle, 
where  Erik  had  shut  himself  up  with  his  queen  and  their 
children.  Goran,  who  was  also  there,  was  seized  by  the  king's 
own  bodyguard  and  given  over  to  the  dukes,  and  after  a  short 
trial  was  put  to  death,  after  having  undergone  the  most  horrible 
tortures  that  his  enemies  could  inflict  upon  him.  When  Erik 
learnt  the  fate  of  his  favourite,  he  surrendered,  and  was  by  the 
order  of  his  brothers  brought  to  trial  before  the  assembled 
states.  He  conducted  his  own  defence,  and  when  his  brother 
Johan  interrupted  his  harangue  against  the  nobles,  with  the 
remark  that  he  was  out  of  his  senses,  Erik  turned  sharply 
upon  him  and  said :  "  Yes,  once  and  only  once  have  I  been 
out  of  my  mind,  and  that  was  when  I  set  you  and  your  in- 
triguing wife  free ! "  The  states,  in  spite  of  his  defence, 
declared  that  he  had  forfeited  the  crown  for  himself  and  his 
children,  and  condemned  him  to  perpetual  confinement,  with 
the  attendance  and  personal  consideration  due  to  a  royal 
prisoner.  Duke  Johan  did  not,  however,  in  those  particulars 
obey  the  orders  of  the  states,  for  although  he  spared  his 
brother's  life,  he  suffered  him  to  be  tortured  by  the  most  cruel 
usage  at  the  hands  of  his  gaolers,  who  not  unfrequently  beat 
and  wounded  him. 


242  SCANDINA  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 

His  Miseries  and  Death. — During  the  eight  years  that  he 
lived  after  his  deposition  in  1569,  he  was  carried  from  one 
prison  to  another  on  pretence  that  his  presence  had  excited 
insurrection,  and  always  under  the  guardianship  of  men  who 
had  been  made  his  enemies  by  some  former  act  of  injustice  or 
cruelty  on  his  part.  ,  He  addressed  frequent  appeals  for  mercy 
to  his  brother,  begging  piteously  to  be  allowed  to  retire  to 
some  foreign  land,  where  he  might  enjoy  the  happiness  of 
having  his  wife  and  children  with  him.  "  Surely,"  he  once 
wrote,  "  the  world  is  large  enough  to  yield  a  spot  where  dis- 
tance may  deaden  the  force  of  a  brother's  hatred."  His  threats, 
his  indignant  protests  against  his  brother's  usurpation,  and 
every  attempt  made  by  his  friends  to  rescue  him,  were  visited 
upon  him  with  an  increase  of  harshness.  In  his  calmer 
moments  he  amused  himself  with  reading  and  with  music, 
and  by  writing  long  treatises  in  his  own  justification.  In  1575 
the  Council  of  State,  at  the  request  of  Johan,  signed  a  warrant 
in  which  power  was  given  to  Erik's  keepers  to  put  him  out  of 
the  way  if  in  consequence  of  any  attempt  at  his  rescue  they 
might  not  be  certain  of  being  able  to  retain  him  in  safe 
custody.  For  two  years  no  one  could  be  found  to  act  on  the 
hint,  and  Johan  being  determined  to  wait  no  longer,  sent  his 
secretary,  Johan  Heinriksson,  to  Oerbyhuus,  where  Erik  then 
was,  giving  him  a  letter,  written  with  his  own  hand,  in  which 
the  commandant,  Erik  Andersson,  was  enjoined  to  administer 
to  his  prisoner  sufficient  arsenic  or  opium  to  kill  him  within  a 
few  hours.  But  in  case  he  should  refuse  to  take  it,  he  was  to 
be  bound  to  a  strong  bench  and  bled  in  the  hands  and  feet 
till  he  was  dead,  or  laid  forcibly  on  his  bed  and  choked 
with  bolsters  and  pillows.  Care  was  to  be  taken,  however, 
that  he  had  first  properly  received  the  Holy  Communion.  As 
Erik  Andersson  hesitated  to  accept  the  fearful  charge  com- 
mitted to  him,  Heinriksson  undertook  this  cruel  labour,  and 
mixing  poison  in  a  plate  of  pea-soup,  he  forced  the  unhappy 
king  to  swallow  it,  and  after  many  hours  of  suffering  Erik  died 
in  the  night  of  the  26th  of  February,  1577,  in  the  forty-fourth 
year  of  his  age.  His  body  was  laid  in  a  simple  grave  in  the 
cathedral  of  Vesteraas,  and  covered  with  a  stone  bearing  this 
inscription  in  Latin  from  ist  Kings,  chapter  ii.  verse  15  : 


SWEDEN  BETWEEN  1520  AND  1568.  243 


"The  kingdom  is  turned  about,  and  is  become  my  brother's  : 
for  it  was  his  from  the  Lord." 

Erik's  love  for  the  humbly  born  Karen  Mannsdatter  had 
been  so  great  that  the  common  people  ascribed  it  to  sorcery. 
She  alone  had  ever  had  power  to  calm  his  fury  and  turn  away 
his  anger,  and  throughout  his  wretched  captivity  she  never 
ceased  to  avail  herself  of  every  chance  permitted  to  her  of 
giving  him  assurances  of  her  faithful  love  ;  and  those,  as  he 
himself  asserts  in  his  numerous  writings,  were  the  only  alle- 
viations he  had  to  his  misery.  Of  their  two  children,  the 
elder,  Sigrid,  married  early,  when  at  the  court  of  Johan's 
queen,  and  became  the  ancestress  of  the  ducal  family,  Thott. 
The  younger,  a  son,  named  Gustaf,  after  being  sent  out  of 
Sweden  in  childhood,  and  forced  to  earn  his  own  living  by 
teaching,  was  for  a  time  kindly  treated  and  helped  by  the 
Emperor  Rudolph,  under  whose  protection  he  studied  alchemy. 
His  strange  and  chequered  life,  which  has  often  been  made 
the  subject  of  romance,  was  rendered  more  unhappy  by  the 
frequent  attempts  of  the  discontented  in  Sweden  to  set  up  his 
claims  against  his  uncle  Johan.  Hence  he  was  never  suffered 
to  remain  long  in  quiet,  and  wherever  he  went  the  Swedish- 
king's  jealous  suspicions  followed  him.  At  length  he  died 
in  1607,  at  an  obscure  country  place  in  Russia,  worn  out  with 
poverty  and  disease,  and  with  his  brain  weakened  by  toe 
ciose  a  study  of  alchemy  and  astrology. 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

DENMARK    FROM    I55Q    TO    1648. 

Christian  III.  of  Denmark  followed  by  Frederick  II. — The  Ditmarsh  cam- 
paign— The  Danish  victory  at  Hejde — The  Danish  and  Swedish  kings 
both  assume  the  three  crowns  in  their  arms — The  war  that  sprang  up 
from  this  assumption — Bad  fortune  of  the  Danes — Peace  favourable  to 
Denmark — Frederick's  intolerance  in  religion — The  persecution  of  Cal- 
vinists — The  great  men  of  this  reign — Vedel  and  the  Krcmpeviscr — • 
Tycho  Brahe,  his  island  observatories— His  merits  —  Ills  fate — 
Christian  IV. — His  minority — His  amusements  in  his  boyhood — His 
love  of  the  sea— His  visit  to  his  English  relations — The  report  ol 
King  James's  courtiers — Christian's  talents  and  acquirements — His  war 
with  Sweden  and  the  Imperialists  in  Germany  in  the  Thirty  Years' 
Wai — The  superiority  of  the  Swedes — Gallantry  and  death  of  Gustavus 
Adolphus  of  Sweden  —Christian's  jealousy  of  the  Swedes — Fresh  wars 
with  Sweden — Conduct  of  the  Danish  nobles  and  Council  of  State — 
Christian's  valour — He  loses  an  eye  in  battle — The  national  anthem  of 
Denmark — Kirstine  Munk  and  her  fate — Kleanore  Kirstine  Ulfi-ld  and 
her  husband — Their  influence  over  King  Christian — His  death — The 
love  of  the  Danes  for  this  king. 

PART  I. 
WAR     BETWEEN     SWEDEN     AND     DENMARK. 

Frederick  I  I.,  1559-1588- — CHRISTIAN  III.  of  Denmark,  who 
died  in  1559,  was  succeeded  by  his  eldest  son,  Frederick  II. 
As  soon  as  he  had  been  proclaimed  king,  this  young  monarch 
took  part  with  his  uncles,  the  Counts  Hans  and  Adolf,  in  an 
incursion  into  the  lands  of  the  Ditmarshers,  who  had  excited 
their  anger  by  refusing  to  pay  certain  taxes  claimed  from  them 
by  the  Holstein  princes.  The  king  entered  all  the  more  readily 


DENMARK  PROM  1559  TO  1648.  245 

into  his  uncles'  plans  because  he  was  anxious  to  wipe  out  the 
disgrace  of  the  defeat  which  the  Danes  had  suffered  under  his 
great-uncle,  King  Hans,  and  his  grandfather,  Frederick  L, 
when  they  attacked  the  Marshmen  in  the  year  1500. 

The  Danish  and  Holstein  armies,  amounting  to  20,000  men, 
were  under  the  command  of  the  old  Count  Johan  Rantzau, 
and  by  his  skill  and  activity  the  campaign  was  brought  to  a 
close  in  less  than  a  month  by  the  complete  subjection  of  the 
Marshmen,  notwithstanding  the  desperate  manner  in  which 
they  and  even  their  wives  arid  daughters  tried  to  resist  the 
advance  of  the  invaders.  The  young  Danish  king  returned  in 
triumph  to  Copenhagen  in  1560,  after  having  received  the 
homage  of  the  4,000  survivors  of  the  great  defeat  inflicted  by 
the  royal  troops  on  the  Ditmarshers  at  Hejde.  His  coronation 
took  place  as  soon  as  he  had  pledged  himself  to  a  new  and 
stringent  compact  with  the  nobles,  who  secured  to  themselves 
the  sole  right  of  selling  fish  and  cattle  to  home  and  foreign 
traders,  and  obtained  many  other  advantages  in  addition  to 
their  old  privileges,  which  were  all  confirmed  to  them.  His 
early  success  had  made  Frederick  confident  in  the  strength  of 
his  own  power ;  and  without  regard  to  consequences  he  con- 
tinued to  bear  the  three  northern  crowns  in  the  national 
standard  of  Denmark,  which,  as  we  have  seen,  brought  him 
into  disputes  with  the  young  King  of  Sweden,  Erik  XIV.,  who 
with  equal  vanity  and  with  no  pretence  of  right  whatever,  had 
done  precisely  the  same  thing  in  regard  to  the  Swedish  arms, 
and  joined  the  Danish  and  Norwegian  colours  to  his  own. 

We  have  read  in  a  former  chapter  of  the  war  which  sprang 
up  between  the  two  nations,  chiefly  in  consequence  of  this 
act  of  foolish  vanity  on  the  part  of  their  respective  sovereigns, 
and  we  have  also  seen  how  disastrous  this  Seven  Years'  Northern 
War  proved  to  both  parties.  The  Swedes,  however,  suffered 
less  than  the  Danes,  for  Gustaf  Vasa  had  left  his  kingdom  in  so 
prosperous  a  state,  that  they  did  not  feel  the  burdens  of  war 
as  much  as  the  people  of  Denmark,  where  the  king's  power  was 
entirely  crippled  by  the  nobles,  who  often  withheld  men  and 
money  from  their  sovereign  at  the  very  moment  that  he  most 
needed  them.  Besides  the  trivial  question  as  to  the  right  of 
bearing  the  three  northern  crowns  on  the  national  arms,  the 


246  SC AND  IN  A  VI AN  HIS  TOR  Y. 

more  important  one  of  the  King  of  Denmark's  claim  to  the 
sovereignty  of  Slesvig  and  Holstein  had  been  in  part  the 
cause  of  the  war  ;  for  Frederick,  to  evade  dividing  those  pro- 
vinces with  his  brothers,  who  claimed  the  right  of  governing 
independently  of  the  King  of  Denmark,  had  given  the  island 
of  Oesel  and  Courland  as  an  equivalent  to  his  younger  brother 
Magnus.  This  prince  was  for  a  time  supported  by  the  in- 
fluence ot  the  Russian  tyrant,  Ivan  Vasilievitsch  II.,  but  when 
Ivan,  with  his  usual  caprice,  sided  with  Erik  of  Sweden, 
who  had  sent  an  army  into  Livonia  to  maintain  the  supremacy 
which  he  claimed  for  Sweden  in  those  lands,  Magnus  was 
deprived  of  all  his  possessions.  Soon  after  these  events,  and 
partly  in  consequence  of  them,  war  broke  out  between  Sweden 
and  Denmark  in  1563.  The  Danes  in  the  course  of  this 
contest  were  generally  unsuccessful  at  sea,  although  they  had 
very  able  commanders ;  and  until  the  old  generals,  Otte 
Krumpen  and  Johan  Rantzau,  took  the  place  of  Count 
Gunther  of  Schwartzburg  in  the  command  of  the  army,  they 
were  almost  equally  unlucky  by  land,  for  the  German  count 
left  his  troops  inactive  while  he  busied  himself  in  sending  to 
Germany  the  herds  of  cattle  that  he  had  driven  off  the  rich 
Holstein  and  Slesvig  lands  in  which  he  lay  encamped.  In 
1565  Krumpen  and  Rantzau  gave  a  new  turn  to  the  war,  and 
during  the  three  years  that  they  continued  their  aggressions  in 
Sweden  they  defeated  one  Swedish  army  after  the  other,  and 
laid  waste  a  great  part  of  Vestgotland,  Smaaland,  and  Ost- 
gotland.  King  Erik  of  Sweden,  in  his  rage  and  mortification, 
visited  every  defeat  on  his  soldiers  as  well  as  on  their  leaders  ; 
at  one  time  ordering  a  number  of  men-at-arms  to  be  cut  down 
in  his  presence,  and  at  another  hanging  up  an  unsuccessful 
commander  before  the  eyes  of  his  soldiers.  In  return  for  the 
damage  done  by  the  Danes  in  Vestgotland,  he  caused  the  oil 
Danish  province  of  Blekingen  to  be  so  cruelly  laid  waste  that 
there  were  only  a  few  poor  peasants  left  in  it,  and  when  these 
unhappy  men  begged  humbly  for  the  king's  protection,  he  said 
he  did  not  want  Danish  traitors  but  true-born  Swedes  for  his 
subjects  ;  and  he  forthwith  sent  a  notice  to  the  men  of  Smaaland 
that  "  they  might  go  and  take  what  they  could  find  in  the 
Blekingers'  homes." 


DENMARK  FROM  1559  TO  1648.  247 

Fredericks  Intolerance. — The  peace  which  was  concluded 
between  the  two  countries  at  Stettin,  in  1570,  was  on  the  whole 
very  favourable  to  Denmark,  since  in  return  for  giving  up  her 
pretensions  to  Sweden,  which  could  never  have  been  estab- 
lished, she  secured  her  own  rights  over  Norway,  Skaania,  Hal- 
land,  and  Blekingen.  The  remaining  part  of  the  reign  of 
Frederick  II.  was  prosperous,  while  he  left  public  affairs  under 
the  direction  of  his  able  minister,  Peder  Oxe,  who  restored 
order  in  the  finances,  encouraged  learning  and  trade,  and  did 
what  he  could  to  improve  the  condition  of  his  serfs.  To  him 
his  countrymen  are  indebted  for  the  introduction  of  many 
fruits,  vegetables,  and  flowers,  hitherto  unknown  in  Denmark, 
while  he  also  stocked  the  lakes  and  streams  with  carp  and 
other  fish.  Frederick  was  an  able,  well-disposed  man,  and 
in  most  respects  he  agreed  readily  to  all  that  his  minister 
proposed  for  the  national  welfare.  He  was,,  however,  intolerant 
in  matters  of  religion,  and  especially  opposed  to  the  doctrines 
of  Calvin,  whose  adherents  were  persecuted  with  the  greatest 
severity  through  the  influence  of  the  Lutheran  divine,  Jacob 
Andreas,  professor  at  Tubingen,  who  had  been  sent  to  Den- 
mark by  Frederick's  brother-in-law,  the  Elector  August  of 
Saxony,  to  advise  the  Danish  king  in  regard  to  questions  of 
faith.  At  his  suggestion  twenty-five  articles  of  belief  were 
drawn  up,  to  which  everyone  who  wished  to  reside  in  the 
Danish  territories  was  compelled  to  give  his  adhesion.  Per- 
secution prevailed  in  every  part  of  the  Danish  territories,  and 
fell  with  almost  equal  severity  on  the  clergy  and  the  laity. 
Among  the  former,  the  most  distinguished  victim  of  the  king's 
intolerance  was  Nils  Hemmingen,  the  friend  and  pupil  of 
Melancthon,  who  held  the  chair  of  theology  in  the  University 
of  Copenhagen,  and  who  was  deprived  of  his  office  and  inter- 
dicted from  teaching  on  account  of  his  presumed  leaning 
towards  some  of  the  doctrines  of  Calvin.  The  pastor  Xiels 
Mikkelsen  was  even  more  severely  treated,  being  ordered  to 
leave  the  kingdom  on  account  of  having  preached  what  was 
condemned  as  "  the  damnable  heresy  that  by  God's  grace  even 
heathens  might  be  saved."  Another  pastor,  Ivar  Berthelsen, 
had  to  think  himself  very  fortunate  in  having  the  sentence  of 
death  which  had  been  passed  upon  him  commuted  into  a  long 


-248  SCANDINA  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 

imprisonment,  on  account  of  his  having  omitted  to  read  the 
words  of  the  renunciation  of  the  devil,  which  formed  part  of 
the  baptismal  service. 

The  great  mm  of  this  reign. — In  this  state  of  things  there 
could  scarcely  be  any  great  progress  in  learning,  which  was  more- 
over also  much  hindered  by  severe  and  foolish  laws  against 
liberty  of  the  press ;  but  nevertheless  during  this  reign  many 
public  institutions  were  established  in  different  parts  of  the 
kingdom ;  the  schools  of  Soro  and  Skovskloster  were  opened, 
and  learned  men  were  encouraged,  provided  they  proved  them- 
selves orthodox  Lutherans.  One  of  the  most  distinguished  of 
these  was  Anders  Sorensen  Vedel,  to  whom  Frederick  com- 
mitted the  labour  of  drawing  up  a  new  History  of  Denmark. 
Vedel  never  completed  this  task,  although  in  connection  with 
it  he  translated  the  Latin  History  of  Denmark,  written  by  the 
old  monk  of  Soro,  Saxo  Grammaticus,  and  collected  all  the 
national  ballads  and  historical  songs  which  were  still  current 
in  Denmark,  and  which  were  generally  included  under  the 
name  of  Kampeviser.  These  compositions,  which  are  far 
more  ancient  than  the  art  of  printing,  had  been  handed  down 
by  word  of  mouth  from  one  generation  to  another,  and  are  of 
the  greatest  importance,  because  in  many  cases  they  are  our 
only  sources  of  information  in  regard  to  many  highly  interest- 
ing events  in  the  history  of  Denmark.  Another  and  a  far 
more  widely  celebrated  man  belonging  to  this  period  was 
Tycho  Brahe,  the  great  astronomer,  who  had  early  in  life 
secured  the  respect  and  admiration  of  the  learned  of  his  times 
by  his  writings  on  the  "  New  Star," l  which  had  suddenly 
appeared  in  the  heavens  in  1572,  and  then  after  continuing 
to  shine  for  eighteen  months  had  ceased  to  be  visible. 
Frederick  II.  always  showed  great  interest  in  Tycho's  re- 
searches, and  to  enable  him  to  pursue  his  observations  un- 
molested, he  bestowed  upon  him  the  little  island  Hven,  near 
Copenhagen.  Tycho  built  a  great  observatory,  known  as 
Uranienborg,  and  remarkable  in  those  times  for  the  number 
of  ingenious  instruments  which  it  contained,  and  for  the  sub- 
terranean observatory  attached  to  it,  in  which  through  a  nar- 

1   /V  A'tva  Stella:    published  in   1572  in   a   separate  paper,   but  after- 
wards included  with  other  treatises  in  one  volume,  1'rogymnasmata, 


DENMARK  FROM  1559  TO  1648.  249 

row  slit  far  above  the  observer's  head  the  stars  might  be  seen 
in  broad  daylight.  When  King  Frederick  died,  Tycho  Brahe's 
relations,  who  belonged  to  the  oldest  nobility,  and  had  long 
resented  his  devotion  to  scientific  research  as  a  disgrace  to 
their  rank,  used  all  their  influence  with  the  regents  to  bring 
him  under  suspicion  of  treason  and  heresy  •  and  at  length,  to 
escape  being  shut  up  for  life  as  a  traitor  or  a  madman,  he  was 
forced  to  seek  safety  abroad.  At  the  earnest  invitation  of  the 
Emperor  Rudolph  II.  of  Germany,  he  sent  in  1598  for  all  his 
instruments  from  Denmark,  and  settled  at  Prague,  where  he 
died  in  1601,  while  engaged  with  his  friend  Kepler  in  com- 
posing from  his  numerous  observations  at  Uranienborg  those 
astronomical  tables,  which  are  known  as  the  Rudolphine.  To 
Tycho  Brahe,  as  the  first  man  who  since  the  days  of  the 
ancient  astronomers,  Ptolemy  and  Hipparchus,  had  been  able 
to  detect  the  errors  of  the  old  systems,  and  construct  more 
correct  instruments,  modern  astronomy  owes  a  large  share  of 
the  important  results  which  were  secured  to  it  by  the  subse- 
quent labours  of  Kepler  and  Newton. 

The  memory  of  Frederick  II.  of  Denmark  and  his  highly- 
gifted  queen  Sophia  possesses  a  special  interest  to  Englishmen, 
since  as  the  parents  of  Anne,  wife  of  James  I.  of  England  and 
VI.  of  Scotland,  they  rank  among  the  direct  ancestors  of  our 
Queen. 

PART  II. 

THE     GREATEST     OF     THE     OLDENBURG     PRINCES. 

Christian  IV.,  1588-1648. — When  Frederick  II.  died,  in  the 
year  1588,  his  son  and  successor,  Christian  IV.,  was  not  more 
than  eleven  years  of  age.  According  to  the  will  of  the  late 
king,  his  queen  Sophia  of  Mecklenburg  was  to  act  as  regent 
for  her  son  till  he  attained  the  age  of  eighteen,  but  the  Council 
of  State  refused  to  confirm  the  regency,  and  appointed  four 
members  of  their  own  body  to  conduct  the  affairs  of  the 
government,  and  to  have  charge  of  the  person  of  the  young 
king.  Still  further  to  promote  their  own  interests,  they  decreed 
that  Christian's  minority  should  continue  till  his  twentieth  year, 


250  SCA  ND1NA  VIA  N  HISTOR  Y. 


and  they  drew  up  a  number  of  strict  rules  of  conduct  which 
were  to  be  observed  by  the  young  prince  in  his  intercourse  with 
his  guardians.  These  were,  however,  able  men,  under  whose 
care  King  Christian  grew  up  to  be  an  accomplished  and  even 
learned  ruler.  He  early  showed  great  capacity  for  mathematics 
and  mechanics,  and  pains  were  taken  by  the  chancellor,  Niels 
Kaas,  to  provide  him  with  competent  teachers  in  these  and 
other  branches  of  learning ;  while  his  love  for  the  sea  was 
gratified  by  another  of  his  guardians,  the  Chief  Admiral,  Peder 
Munk,  who  caused  a  beautiful  little  frigate  to  be  built  expressly 
for  him,  and  launched  upon  the  lake  by  his  palace  of  Skander- 
borg,  where  expert  sailors  taught  him  how  to  manage  his  toy 
man-of-war,  and  shipbuilders  instructed  him  in  all  the  details 
of  their  craft.  This  kind  of  training  strengthened  his  natural 
taste  for  a  seaman's  life,  and  one  of  the  first  things  he  did  after 
he  became  his  own  master  was  to  explore  all  the  fjords  of  the 
Norwegian  coast  as  far  as  Lapland,  where  he  witnessed  the 
striking  sight  of  the  sun  continuing  above  the  horizon  for 
nearly  all  the  twenty-four  hours  of  a  midsummer's  day. 

This  king  paid  a  visit  to  England  in  1606  to  see  his  sister 
Anne,  who  had  married  James  I.  ;  and  we  are  told  that  he 
took  his  young  nephews,  the  princes  Henry,  Charles  and 
James,  for  a  cruise  with  him  in  the  Channel,  on  board  his 
own  ship,  the  Trcfoldighed  or  Trinity,  for  which  he  had  himself 
given  the  model.  There  was  much  feasting  and  merry-making 
during  this  visit,  and  when  he  left,  the  courtiers  of  James  I. 
expressed  their  astonishment  at  the  quantity  of  beer  and  wine 
that  the  royal  guest  could  take.  They  were,  however,  even 
more  astonished  at  the  learning  of  -this  northern  king,  who 
spoke  many  languages  with  equal  facility,  could  fence  and 
fight,  ride  and  drive,  and  swim  and  leap  with  the  best  of  them, 
and  who  seemed  to  know  something  of  every  subject,  asked 
questions  about  everything  he  saw,  was  well  acquainted  with 
the  science  of  his  times,  and  knew  all  that  was  needed  to  plan 
the  building  of  a  ship,  a  church,  or  a  palace.  Christian  very 
possibly  inherited  some  of  his  talent  and  love  of  knowledge 
from  his  mother,  Sophia  of  Mecklenburg,  who  was  said  to 
have  been  the  most  learned  queen  of  her  age,  and  who,  when 
the  nobles  and  Council  of  State  would  not  let  her  act  as  regent 


DENMARK  FROM  1559  TO  1648.  251 

for  her  son,  retired  to  a  quiet  place  in  the  country,  where  she 
spent  her  time  in  the  study  of  chemistry,  astronomy,  and  other 
sciences. 

War  with  Sweden. — It  would  have  been  well  for  Denmark 
if  her  king  had  devoted  his  great  talents  to  the  duties  of 
governing  his  kingdom  quietly,  and  had  kept  at  peace  with  his 
neighbours.  But  Christian's  reign  was  seldom  free  from  war 
with  Sweden  or  Germany,  and  hence  his  subjects  were  never 
left  for  any  length  of  time  to  benefit  by  his  excellent  laws, 
and  the  able  measures  which  he  took  to  promote  the  industry 
and  welfare  of  his  kingdom.  The  first  outbreak  of  war 
between  Denmark  and  Sweden  was  due  to  the  determina- 
tion with  which  the  Swedish  king,  Charles  IX.,  tried  to  shut 
out  the  Danes  from  all  share  in  the  trade  with  Courland  and 
Livonia,  and  to  exact  tribute  from  the  Lapps,  whom  Christian 
IV.  claimed  as  his  own  subjects  on  the  ground  that  Lapland 
belonged  to  Norway.  The  Swedes  were  anxious  for  peace, 
and  offered  to  negotiate,  but  Christian,  who  would  listen  to  no 
explanations,  entered  Sweden  in  1611  at  the  head  of  16.000 
men,  and  after  several  small  but  fierce  encounters,  in  which 
young  Gustavus  Adolphus  of  Sweden  gained  his  first  ex- 
perience of  war,  he  made  himself  master  of  Calmar  through 
the  treachery  of  the  commandant.  The  Danes  carried  on 
the  war  with  great  cruelty  in  Vestgotland,  whilst  the  Swedes, 
under  their  young  king  Gustavus,  who  soon  after  the  taking 
of  Calmar  succeeded  his  father  at  the  age  of  seventeen,  laid 
waste  the  Danish  territories  in  Skaania.  In  this  campaign 
both  kings  were  often  in  great  peril.  On  one  occasion 
Christian's  life  was  only  saved  by  the  devotion  of  one  of  his 
officers,  Kristen  Barnekov,  who  gave  him  his  own  horse,  and 
then  turned  to  receive  the  enemy's  attack  while  the  king 
escaped  ;  at  another  time  when  young  Gustavus  fell  through 
the  ice  on  Lake  Vide  in  Skaania,  he  would  have  been  drowned 
or  captured  by  the  advancing  Danes,  if  a  Swedish  knight  had 
not  rescued  him  at  the  risk  of  his  own  life.  Both  kingdoms 
suffered  severely  in  this  war,  and  both  showed  an  equal  readi- 
ness to  enter  into  a  treaty  of  peace,  which  was  concluded  in 
1613,  when  Sweden  gave  up  her  claims  on  Norwegian  Lapland 
for  six  years,  after  which  time  that  district  and  the  port  of 


252  SCANDINA  VIAN  IIISTOR  Y. 

Alfsborg,  if  not  redeemed  by  the  Swedes  for  one  million  silver 
dollars,  were  to  be  united  for  ever  with  Denmark.  The  Danes 
had  confidently  looked  forward  to  their  possession  of  these 
districts,  as  they  did  not  believe  it  possible  for  the  Swedes  to 
collect  so  large  a  sum  in  the  time,  but  to  their  disappointment 
the  money  was  paid  and  the  lands  redeemed. 

Christian's  great  merits. — Christian's  merits  as  a  ruler  were 
great.  To  him  Denmark  owed  the  establishment  of  trading 
companies  in  Iceland,  Greenland,  America,  and  the  East 
Indies  ;  the  opening  of  the  first  line  of  post-roads  from  Copen- 
hagen to  the  various  sea-ports ;  the  erection  of  numerous 
bridges,  fortifications  and  other  means  of  national  defence  ; 
the  enlistment  of  the  first  standing  Danish  army  ;  the  careful 
organization  of  the  fleet  and  navy,  and  the  foundation  of 
several  military  and  naval  colleges.  He  encouraged  home 
trade  by  bringing  skilled  artificers  from  abroad  to  teach  the 
Danish  workmen,  aided  master  tradesmen  in  building  manu- 
factories and  workshops,  and  employed  men  skilled  in  science 
to  superintend  the  royal  silver  and  copper  mines  in  Norway, 
and  give  advice  to  the  inspectors  of  the  crown  lands,  woods, 
and  lakes.  His  love  of  display  and  taste  for  building  tended 
greatly  to  improve  and  embellish  his  capital ;  and  the  splendid 
castles  of  Fredericksborg  and  Rosenberg  near  Copenhagen, 
together  with  the  Round  Tower,  the  Royal  Exchange,  and  one 
or  two  churches  which  have  escaped  the  effects  of  the 
numerous  great  fires  and  bombardments,  from  which  the 
Danish  capital  has  suffered  in  the  last  two  hundred  years, 
still  attest  the  artistic  skill  and  creative  genius  of  tins  king, 
who  in  most  cases  himself  drew  the  models  and  plans  of  the 
buildings  which  he  erected. 

Christian  IV.  applied  himself  with  great  diligence  and 
sagacity  to  the  task  of  revising  the  laws  of  Denmark  and 
Norway,  and  making  alterations  in  them  suited  to  the  changed 
condition  of  society  ;  and  here,  as  in  the  measures  which  he 
took  to  improve  the  higher  schools,  lie  showed  a  strong  lean- 
ing towards  principles  of  equality.  The  effect  of  all  the 
changes  which  he  brought  about  in  the  laws  was  to  subject 
the  nobles  to  the  same  legal  control  as  the  classes  below  them, 
while  the  extension  which  he  <jave  to  ur.iver.sitv  teaching  in 


DENMARK  FROM  1559   TO  1648.  253 

his  kingdoms  was  designed  to  benefit  poorer  students.  He 
also  showed  his  wish  to  improve  the  younger  members  of  the 
nobility  by  founding  in  1623,  an  academy  at  Soro,  near  Copen- 
hagen, which  was  intended  solely  to  give  them  instruction 
suited  to  their  rank  before  they  left  their  own  country  to  travel 
abroad  for  the  sake  of  amusement.  His  constant  endeavour 
to  lessen  the  power  of  the  nobles  over  their  serfs,  and  check 
their  encroachments  on  the  rights  of  the  crown,  made  him 
unpopular  with  the  higher  classes,  and  in  return  they  thwarted 
him  in  every  possible  way,  and  took  vengeance  for  his  disregard 
of  their  prerogatives  by  withholding  the  money  supplies  which 
he  required  to  carry  on  operations  against  the  Imperialists  in 
the  Thirty  Years'  War.  This  war,  which  began  in  1618,  and 
gradually  embroiled  all  the  princes  of  Northern  Europe  before 
its  close  in  1648,  had  spread  to  the  Baltic  lands  early  in  the 
year  1625,  and  then  it  was  that  the  Protestant  princes  of 
North  Germany  appealed  to  Christian  IV.  for  help  against  the 
Imperialist  generals,  Wallenstein  and  Tilly,  who,  after  laying 
waste  every  Protestant  district  of  Southern  Germany,  had 
thrown  their  armies  into  Pomerania.  Christian  IV.  brought 
a  large  number  of  troops  into  Germany,  and  for  three  years 
lie  did  good  service  in  the  cause  of  the  Protestants  in  Pome- 
rania, the  Mark-lands,  and  Brunswick ;  but  while  he  was 
fighting  abroad,  his  enemies  were  carrying  the  war  behind 
his  back  into  his  own  country,  and  slaying  and  plundering 
wherever  they  appeared.  In  Holstein  and  Slesvig,  the  duke 
Frederick  III.  had  opened  those  provinces  to  Wallenstein,  and 
given  up  to  him  all  his  fortresses,  in  defiance  of  the  king, 
whose  vassal  he  was.  This  act  roused  Christian's  anger,  ant! 
was  the  cause  of  strengthening  the  feelings  of  ill-will  which 
they  had  long  felt  towards  each  other,  and  which  the  Holstein 
princes  showed  by  taking  part  against  Denmark  on  every 
possible  occasion. 


2$4  SCANDIXA  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 

PART  III. 
DENMARK'S     DECLINE. 

Christian's  Troubles. — In  1629  Christian  IV.  withdrew  from 
the  German  war,  and  by  the  treaty  of  Lubeck  he  regained 
the  lands  which  had  been  seized  by  the  emperor's  generals, 
pledging  himself  never  again  to  take  up  arms  for  the  Ger- 
man Protestant  princes  against  the  Imperial  power.  Den- 
mark had  suffered  so  severely  in  this  war,  and  the  finances 
were  so  thoroughly  exhausted,  that  the  king  found  it  a  hard  task 
to  try  to  restore  order  to  his  kingdom ;  and  while  he  was  strug- 
gling at  home  against  his  nobles,  who  always  refused  help  when 
he  most  needed  it,  and  thwarted  all  his  measures,  he  had  the 
mortification  of  seeing  his  rival,  Gustavus  Adolphus,  winning 
renown  abroad,  and  supported  by  the  liberal  aid  of  his  sub- 
jects. After  the  glorious  death  of  Gustavus  at  the  battle  of 
Liitzen  in  1632,  the  fame  of  Sweden  was  gallantly  maintained 
in  Germany  by  his  generals,  and  the  welfare  of  his  kingdom 
was  well  cared  for  by  the  regents  who  ruled  during  the  minority 
of  his  infant  daughter,  Christina.  These  successes  excited  the 
jealousy  of  Christian,  while  they  made  the  Swedish  regents 
arrogant  in  their  bearing  towards  him  ;  and  hence  very  slight 
causes  proved  sufficient  to  stir  up  a  war  between  the  northern 
kingdoms.  Hostilities  began  in  1643  with  an  incursion  of  the 
Swedish  troops,  under  Torstenson,  into  Slesvig,  whence  they 
spread  therr.selves  all  over  the  peninsula  on  pretence  of  seeking 
winter  quarters.  King  Christian  had  foreseen  this  attack,  and 
repeatedly  appealed  to  his  Council  of  State  for  men  and  money 
to  form  an  army  of  defence,  but  they  would  do  nothing  to  help 
their  king,  and  seemed  only  to  care  for  their  private  interests. 
Christian  was  therefore  forced  to  make  peace  on  any  terms, 
and  in  the  year  1645  hostilities  ceased  in  accordance  with  the 
treaty  of  Bromsebro,  which  gave  to  Sweden  the  islands  of 
Gothland  and  Oesel  and  other  Danish  territories  for  thirty 
years,  after  which  these  lands  might  be  redeemed  for  money 
by  Denmark.  At  the  same  time  the  Swedes  secured  entire 
freedom  from  all  the  long-established  tolls  in  the  Sound,  and 


DENMARK  FROM  1559  TO  1648.  255 

obtained  so  great  a  diminution  of  these  dues  for  their  allies, 
the  Dutch,  that  the  revenue  lost  more  than  200,000  dollars 
from  this  source  of  income. 

Christian's  gallantry. — It  was  in  this  war  that  Christian, 
while  commanding  the  fleet  from  his  own  ship  Trefoldighed, 
or  Trinity ',  lost  his  eye  and  was  otherwise  severely  injured  by 
the  splinter  of  a  mast,  which  struck  him  in  the  face  as  he  was 
giving  the  word  of  command.  The  king,  who  was  then  up- 
wards of  seventy  years  old,  continued  to  direct  the  movements 
of  his  fleet,  and  remained  on  deck  till  the  increasing  darkness 
forced  the  Swedes  to  take  shelter  in  the  Bay  of  Kiele  off  the 
island  of  Femern.  The  following  day  he  drew  a  line  of  ships 
across  the  entrance  of  the  bay,  and  leaving  his  admiral,  Peeler 
Gait,  to  watch  the  Swedish  fleet,  returned  to  Copenhagen  to 
seek  the  rest  which  he  so  much  needed.  To  Christian's  great 
mortification,  Gait  allowed  the  Swedes  to  escape,  an  act  of  care- 
lessness which  the  unfortunate  admiral  had  to  expiate  with  his 
life,  for  the  king  had  him  brought  before  a  court-martial,  by 
whose  sentence  he  was  condemned  to  death.1 

Denmark  was  left  in  a  miserable  condition  after  the  peace  of 
Bromsebro,  and  when  the  old  king  in  his  perplexity  tried  to 
secure  money  by  commuting  for  a  fine  the  service  with  men 
and  horses  which  the  nobles  owed  to  the  crown,  the  Council  or 
State  threatened  to  pass  over  his  sons  in  the  succession,  and 
elect  a  prince  of  the  Holstein-Gottorp  family  to  be  his  suc- 
cessor. Thus  poor  Christian's  last  days  were  clouded  with 
many  cares  and  troubles,  and  at  his  death  in  1648  the  kingdom 
bore  very  few  marks  of  the  care  and  ability  which  he  had 
devoted  to  the  government.  After  the  loss  of  his  first  queen. 
Anna  Katherina  of  Brandenburg,  in  1612,  Christian  had 
married  Kirstine  Munk,  a  lady  of  noble  family,  to  whom  he 
gave  the  title  of  Countess  of  Slesvig-Holstein,  as  her  want  of 
royal  birth  prevented  her  being  raised  to  the  rank  of  his  queen. 

1  King  Christian's  personal  valour  in  this  engagement  has  been  made  the 
subject  of  a  poem  by  J.  Evvald,  who  died  in  1781,  and  was  one  of  the 
greatest  Danish  writers  of  lyrics.  During  the  present  century  this  song. 
beginning  with  the  words  A'onj  Christian  stod  ved  hizien  mast,  "  King 
Christian  stood  beside  the  high  mast,"  has  been  set  to  music  and  used  as 
the  national  anthem  of  Denmark. 


256  SC AND  IN  A  VI AN  JIISTOR  Y, 

The  king  lived  for  many  years  happily  with  this  lady,  and 
showed  great  affection  to  their  large  family,  but  after  a  time  he 
became  distrustful  of  her,  and  caused  her  conduct  to  be  made 
the  subject  of  judicial  inquiry  before  the  Council,  and  banished 
her  to  Jutland,  where  she  ended  her  days.  The  most  highly 
gifted  of  their  daughters  was  Eleanore  Kirstine,  who  married  a 
Danish  nobleman,  Korfitz  Ulfeld,  and,  together  with  her  am- 
bitious young  husband,  exerted  a  very  great  influence  over  the 
king  during  his  latter  years,  and  thus  excited  the  envy  of  her 
own  relations,  and  the  suspicions  of  the  courtiers. 

With  the  Danish  people  the  memory  of  Christian  IV.  has 
been  cherished  with  devoted  loyalty  from  one  generation  to 
another,  and  they  look  upon  him  as  the  greatest  king  they  have 
had  since  the  time  of  the  Valdemars,  ascribing  the  good  of  his 
reign  to  himself,  and  the  evil  to  the  nobles  by  whom  lie  was 
held  in  such  galling  bondage. 


CHAPTER  XIX, 

SWEDEN    BETWEEN    1568    AND    l6ll. 

Johan,  son  of  Gustaf  Eriksson  Vasa,  crowned  king  on  the  forced  abdication 
of  his  brother,  King  Erik  XIV. — Johan's  suspicion  of  his  brother,  Duke 
Karl — Karl's  superior  abilities — His  zeal  for  Protestantism— Johan's 
learning — His  religion  and  bigotry-— His  methods  and  devices  for 
spreading  Catholicism — Jesuits  aid  him — Pope's  condemnation  of  their 
conduct — His  liturgy,  known  as  Rbda  HoU-n — His  terms  of  reproach 
against  the  Reformers — His  second  marriage  with  the  young  Gunilla 
Bjelke — His  change  of  views — The  many  miseries  of  his  reign — His 
wars — His  son  Sigismund  succeeds  to  the  Polish  crown — Sigismund's 
wish  to  return  to  Sweden — Conduct  of  Council — Johan  and  Duke  Karl 
reconciled — Johan's  death-bed  penitence  and  resolution — His  death— 
The  Queen's  conduct — Karl's  anger  at  her  avarice — He  conducts 
the  government — -Summons  the  Assembly  at  Upsala—  Resolutions  to 
uphold  Lutheran  faith  —  Importance  of  Upsala  Resolutions  —  The 
Russians  and  their  barbarism — Sigismund's  arrival  in  Sweden — His  con- 
duct— Quarrels  with  his  uncle,  but  has  to  submit  to  his  terms — Religious 
dissensions — The  coronation — Sigismund  returns  to  Poland — Karl's  rule 
— The  Duke's  subjection  of  Finland,  and  cruelty  to  nobles — Civil  war — 
Sigismund's  abdication — Claims  of  young  Duke  Johan  put  aside  volun- 
tarily— Karl,  or  Charles,  as  he  is  called,  is  crowned  king — His  learning, 
character,  and  conduct  to  the  nobles  and  the  lower  classes  in  his  kingdom 
— His  zeal  for  Protestantism — His  internal  improvements — His  constant 
wars  abroad — His  effort  to  establish  friendly  relations  of  policy  with 
other  States — His  will — His  two  wives  —  His  daughter — Her  learning 
— Her  marriage — She  becomes  ancestress  of  future  kings  of  Sweden — 
King  Charles's  friendship  with  Henry  of  Navarre. 

PART   I. 
THE     SONS     OF    GUSTAF     VASA. 

Johan,  1568-1592  :  His  zeal  for  Catholicism. — IN  Chapter 
xvii.  we  followed  the  history  of  Sweden  from  the  time  that 
the  power  of  the  Danes  under  their  king  Christian  II.  was 
entirely  crushed,  and  the  Swedish  monarchy  was  raised  to  the 

s 


358  SCANDINA  VI AN  HISTOR  V. 

rank  of  an  independent  and  prosperous  state  under  its  great 
deliverer,  Gustaf  Eriksson  Vasa.  We  shall  now  have  to  take 
up  the  thread  of  the  narrative  from  the  year  1568,  when 
Gustaf  Vasa's  son  and  successor,  Erik  XIV.,  was  deposed 
by  his  brothers  Johan  and  Karl,  the  former  of  whom  was 
crowned  King  of  Sweden  under  the  title  of  Johan  III., 
while  the  unhappy  Erik,  after  nine  years'  cruel  captivity, 
was,  as  we  have  seen,  murdered  at  Oerbyhus  in  the  winter  of 

1577. 

In  all  the  proceedings  carried  on  by  the  dukes  against  their 
elder  brother,  the  name  of  Karl  had  always  been  associated 
with  that  of  Johan  ;  but  when  the  insane  king  was  securely  set 
aside,  Duke  Johan  asserted  his  right  to  be  crowned  sole  king, 
and  began  at  once  to  show  a  suspicion  of  his  younger  brother 
Karl,  which  compelled  that  prince  to  exercise  great  caution  in 
his  conduct.  Duke  Karl  was  the  ablest  of  Gustaf  Vasa's 
sons ;  and  as  he  was  a  zealous  Protestant,  a  large  portion  of 
the  nation  who  were  opposed  to  the  re-establishment  of  the 
Catholic  faith  looked  to  him  as  a  champion  in  the  cause  of 
their  religion,  and  made  his  dominions  of  Sodermanland, 
Narike,  and  Varmland  a  centre  of  opposition  against  the 
arbitrary  power  of  King  Johan.  But  in  spite  of  his  own  am- 
bition and  the  many  opportunities  presented  to  him  of  gaining 
the  goodwill  of  the  people,  Duke  Karl  remained  loyal  both  to 
his  brother  and  to  his  nephew  Sigismund.  Johan,  like  King 
Erik,  was  a  learned  man,  and  during  his  imprisonment  he  had 
devoted  himself  to  study.  He  had,  however,  at  the  same  time 
been  induced  by  his  wife,  Katerina  Jagellonica,  who  shared  his 
prison  with  him,  to  renounce  Protestantism  and  declare  himself 
a  Catholic,  and  during  her  lifetime  he  never  ceased  his  labours 
to  re-establish  the  power  of  the  Romish  church  in  Sweden. 
'I he  death  in  1573  of  L.aurentius  Petri,  the  first  Lutheran  arch- 
bishop of  Sweden,  gave  Johan  the  opportunity  of  testifying 
publicly  the  views  which  he  had  long  been  trying  secretly 
to  promote,  and  the  new  primate,  Gothus,  a  weak  and 
visionary  man,  was  easily  persuaded  to  give  his  sanction  to  a 
church  law  for  the  restoration  of  monasteries,  the  worship  of 
faints,  prayers  for  the  dead,  and  the  use  of  various  ceremonies. 
Jesuits  were  sent  for  to  lecture  in  Stockholm,  but  were  ex- 


SWEDEN  FROM  1568  TO  1611.  259 


pressly  ordered  to  conceal  their  religion,  and  to  hold  disputa- 
tions nominally  in  the  defence  of  the  Reformers.  When  Pope 
Gregory  XIII.  learned  the  acts  of  duplicity  in  which  these  Jesuit 
teachers  had  been  engaged,  he  strongly  condemned  their  con- 
duct, and  enjoined  upon  the  king  boldly  to  proclaim  his  adhesion 
to  the  Church  of  Rome,  and  to  use  no  further  deceit  in  the 
matter.  Some  years  later  he  even  caused  Father  Laurentius 
Norvegicus  to  be  summoned  before  the  General  of  the  Order 
of  Jesuits  at  Rome,  to  answer  for  his  conduct  in  pretending 
to  uphold  doctrines  which  he  believed  to  be  false.  The 
liturgy  which  Johan  had  drawn  up  with  a  view  of  reconciling 
the  new  with  the  old  faith,  and  which  had  been  severely  con- 
demned by  the  Papal  Court,  was  known  as  Roda  Boken,  the  red 
book.  The  king's  determination  to  enforce  this  form  of  prayer 
on  his  subjects  was  the  cause  of  great  discontent  in  the  country, 
and  soon  the  court  of  Duke  Karl,  who  had  refused  to  allow  it 
to  be  introduced  in  his  duchy,  became  the  recognized  asylum 
for  all  persons  threatened  with  persecution  for  their  adhesion 
to'the  doctrines  of  the  reformers.  The  Pope's  disapproval  of 
Johan's  conduct  and  the  death  of  his  queen,  Katerina  Jagel- 
lonica,  had  the  effect  of  estranging  him  completely  from  the 
Catholics,  but  for  a  time  he  insisted  all  the  more  strongly  upon 
the  use  of  his  liturgy,  punishing  all  preachers  and  teachers  who 
opposed  its  adoption  as  "ignorant  blockheads,  obstinate  asses, 
and  wicked  devils."  After  Johan's  marriage  in  1585  with 
Gunilla  Bjelke,  a  young  girl  of  sixteen,  and  daughter  of  the 
Councillor,  Johan  Bjelke,  he  gradually  yielded  to  the  influence 
of  his  wife's  family,  who  were  zealous  Lutherans,  and  allowed 
the  Catholic  party  to  be  thwarted  in  all  the  schemes  which  he 
had  himself  urged  them  to  enter  upon.  Johan  was  a  man  of  un- 
stable will,  possessed  with  extravagant  ideas  of  his  own  dignity 
and  of  the  sacredness  of  his  royal  power,  but  his  weakness 
and  vanity  led  him  to  be  easily  guided  by  those  about  his 
person ;  and  after  his  second  marriage  he  identified  himself 
more  and  more  with  the  interests  of  the  Swedish  nobles,  as 
the  Bjelkes,  Sparres,  Bauer,  and  others  with  whom  he  had 
become  related.  In  his  anxiety  to  secure  the  steadfast  adhe- 
sion of  these  and  other  powerful  families,  he  established  new 
privileges  of  nobility,  and  bestowed  estates  and  certain 

s  2 


26o  SC AND  IN  A  VI AN  HIS  TOR  Y. 

manorial  rights   in   connection   with  the  title   of  count   and 
baron,  which  had  not  hitherto  belonged  to  them. 

Miseries  of  this  reign. — This  reign  was  unfortunate  in  almost 
every  respect,  for  while  religious  differences  had  been  allowed 
to  disturb  the  kingdom,  and  the  army  and  navy  had  been 
neglected,  bad  seasons,  murrain,  famine  and  pestilence  had 
pressed  heavily  upon  the  working  classes,  and  the  finances  had 
been  exhausted  by  those  wars  with  Russia  and  Poland  in  which 
Johan  had  frequently  taken  part,  in  order  to  enforce  his  son's 
claims  to  the  Polish  crown.  The  differences  with  Denmark 
had  been  settled  by  the  peace  of  Stettin  in  1570,  by  which  the 
dissolution  of  the  union  of  the  two  kingdoms  was  formally- 
recognized,  the  right  of  both  kings  to  assume  the  three  crowns 
in  the  royal  arms  was  admitted,  and  Sweden  was  allowed  to 
take  Elfsborg  back  on  the  payment  to  Denmark  of  a  fine  of 
150,000  rix  dollars — a  sum  of  money  which  is  nearly  equi- 
valent to  two  and  a  half  million  rix  dollars  in  our  own  days.  In 
1587  Prince  Sigismund,  the  only  son  of  Johan  and  Katcrina,  was 
elected  to  the  vacant  throne  of  Poland.  He  was  received  by 
the  Poles  with  every  mark  of  respect  and  affection,  but  the 
cares  of  government  and  the  independence  of  the  nobles  made 
the  young  king  very  soon  regret  that  he  had  accepted  the  Polish 
crown,  and  separated  himself  from  his  own  family.  King  Johan 
was  equally  sorry  that  he  had  allowed  the  prince  to  leave  him, 
and  at  a  meeting  held  between  them  in  1589,  father  and  son  de- 
termined to  renounce  all  claim  on  the  throne  of  Poland,  and  to 
go  back  together  to  Sweden  as  soon  as  Sigismund's  resignation 
had  been  accepted.  This  plan,  however,  met  with  so  much 
opposition  among  Johan's  councillors  and  officers,  that  the 
kings  had  to  submit  and  return  separately  to  their  respective 
capitals.  The  Swedish  king,  enraged  with  his  council,  caused 
the  greater  number  of  its  members  to  be  arrested,  and  called 
upon  them  to  defend  themselves  on  the  charge  of  treason, 
while  he  effected  a  complete  reconciliation  with  his  brother, 
Duke  Karl,  and  resigned  to  him  the  chief  power  in  the  State. 
The  disgraced  councillors,  Erik  Sparre,  Thure  Bjclke,  and  Sten 
Bauer,  were  deprived  of  all  their  tenures  of  land  and  dignities, 
and  although  no  act  of  treason  could  be  proved  against  them, 
they  were  kept  in  close  confinement  till  the  year  1592,  when 


SWEDEN  FROM  1568  TO  1611.  261 


Johan.  feeling  himself  to  be  on  his  death-bed,  released  them. 
He  at  the  same  time  declared  that  he  regretted  having  tried  to 
enforce  his  liturgy,  since  it  had  caused  so  much  misery  and 
dissent  in  the  kingdom,  and  promised  if  it  should  please  God 
to  prolong  his  life  that  he  would  allow  freedom  of  faith  to  all 
persons  in  his  dominions. 

Johaits  death  and  Karl's  conduct.— The  king's  death,  which 
took  place  in  the  autumn  of  1592  at  his  palace  in  Stockholm,  was 
concealed  for  three  days  by  his  queen,  Gunilla  Bjelke,  who, 
together  with  her  kinsmen,  the  Councillors  Clas  Bjelke  and 
Goran  Posse,  was  suspected  of  having  employed  the  interval 
in  removing  all  the  valuables  on  which  she  could  lay  her 
hands.  When  Duke  Karl  on  his  arrival  at  Stockholm  dis- 
covered what  had  happened,  and  found  that  the  royal  corpse 
had  been  put  aside,  unguarded  in  an  outer  office,  he  gave  vent 
to  the  fiercest  expressions  of  rage  against  his  sister-in-law  and 
all  her  family,  ordering  her  to  give  him  a  list  of  everything  in 
her  keeping,  and  to  leave  the  spot  before  nightfall.  The  queen, 
however,  was  able  to  produce  a  document  in  which  Johan  had 
declared  that  she  was  not  to  be  called  upon  to  give  account  to 
anyone  for  her  possessions,  and  the  duke  was,  therefore,  forced 
to  let  the  matter  rest.  He  caused  his  brother's  body  to  be 
laid  in  state,  and  deposited  in  the  royal  chapel  till  his  public 
funeral  could  be  solemnised,  and  he  at  once  assumed  the 
direction  of  affairs  until  the  wishes  of  Sigismund  could  be 
known.  In  this  respect  he  was  simply  continuing  to  retain  the 
power  which  had  been  confided  to  him  by  King  Johan,  three 
years  before  ;  but  foreseeing  the  policy  that  his  Catholic 
nephew  would  probably  pursue  in  regard  to  questions  of 
religion,  he  determined  to  settle  the  government  of  the  Swedish 
church  before  Sigismund's  arrival.  A  meeting  of  the  clergy 
and  representatives  of  the  other  orders  of  the  State  was,  there- 
fore, called  at  Upsala  in  1593,  in  which  after  prolonged  and 
stormy  discussions  the  Augsburg  confession  of  faith,  adopted 
by  the  Lutherans  of  Germany,  was  recognized  as  the  established 
religion  of  Sweden.  All  present  promised  to  spend  their 
blood,  and  their  life  if  necessary,  to  uphold  their  faith,  and 
joined  with  a  loud  voice  in  the  words  with  which  the  president 
closed  his  address,  saying,  "  Now  Sweden  is  as  one  man,  and 


262  SCANDINA  VI AN  HISTOR  > . 


we  all  have  one  God."  This  meeting  is  regarded  as  one  of  the 
most  important  events  in  the  religious  history  of  Sweden,  and 
the  centenary  of  the  day  on  which  its  resolutions  were  finally 
adopted  was  solemnized  by  services  of  thanksgiving  in  the 
Swedish  churches  in  1693  and  in  1793,  in  accordance  with  the 
prescribed  regulations  for  its  commemoration. 

Russians  show  their  power. — During  the  reign  of  Johan  we 
hear  for  the  first  time  of  the  Russians  as  formidable  neighbours 
and  foes  of  Sweden.  Before  the  accession  in  1533  of  Ivan  II., 
who  was  crowned  Czar  of  Muscovy  in  1545,  the  year  before 
Edward  VI.  ascended  the  English  throne,  the  savage  tribes  of 
Russia  had  scarcely  been  heard  of  beyond  the  boundaries  of  their 
vast  dominions ;  but  under  that  ferocious  tyrant  they  began  to 
be  trained  to  make  war  on  the  neighbouring  states.  Ivan  had 
however  formed  a  sort  of  friendly  alliance  with  Erik  XIV.  of 
Sweden,  who  as  a  proof  of  his  goodwill  had  agreed  to  help  him 
in  securing  for  himself  the  wife  of  Duke  Johan,  Katerina  Jagel- 
lonica,  whom  the  Czar  wished  to  marry.  After  Erik's  abdi- 
cation, Russian  envoys  appeared  at  Stockholm  to  demand  the 
person  of  Katerina,  and  the  rage  of  the  people  on  learning  the 
insult  which  had  been  thus  offered  to  their  queen  was  so  great 
that  it  required  the  personal  interference  of  King  Johan  himself 
and  of  Duke  Karl  to  save  them  from  being  killed  on  the  spot. 
The  ambassadors  were  however  allowed  to  return  to  Russia, 
and  in  1570  a  Swedish  embassy  was  sent  to  negotiate  with 
Ivan  in  regard  to  the  settlement  of  a  boundary  question.  In 
defiance  of  his  pledges  of  safe  conduct,  the  C/ar  treated  these 
envoys  with  savage  cruelty,  and  after  detaining  them  for  two 
years  in  confinement,  he  sent  them  back  to  Sweden  with  the 
message  that  he  intended  to  make  himself  master  of  Livonia. 
This  was  the  signal  of  war,  and  till  Ivan's  death  in  1584,  the 
people  of  Finland,  Livonia,  and  the  neighbouring  districts 
were  subjected  to  the  most  fearful  tortures  at  the  hands  of  their 
barbarous  foes,  who  burnt  their  prisoners  alive,  and  spared 
neither  women  nor  children.  Sweden  suffered  heavily  in  these 
wars  until  the  gallant  French  nobleman,  Ponte  de  la  Cardie, 
who  commanded  a  troop  of  free  lances  in  the  Swedish  service, 
gave  a  new  turn  to  the  course  of  events,  and  together  with 
the  Swedish  captains,  Henrik  and  Clas  Horn,  recovered 


SWEDEN  UNDER  THE  WASAS  (IN  THE  17™  CENTTKY). 


I.-md.nr,  Mac-jnUlan  <t  ('" 


SWEDEN  FR  OM  1568  TILL  1611.  263 

Livonia,  and  carried  his  victorious  army  across  the  Russian 
frontier.  Ivan  on  his  deathbed  had  counselled  his  son  Feodor 
to  makepeace  with  Sweden,  whose  warlike  tactics  the  Russians 
had  learnt  to  respect,  but  Johan  refused  to  agree  to  any  terms, 
and  thus  entailed  upon  his  kingdom  during  the  rest  of  his  reign 
9  costly  and  destructive  war. 


PART  II. 
RELIGIOUS     TROUBLES     IN     SWEDEN. 

Sigismund,  1592-1599. — After  great  opposition,  the  Polish 
Estates  consented,  on  the  death  of  Johan,  to  let  their  king 
Sigismund  return  to  Sweden  to  assume  the  crown,  and  voted  a 
sum  of  200,000  gulden  in  order  that  he  might  accomplish  the 
journey  with  the  state  befitting  his  rank.  After  a  tedious  and 
stormy  voyage  from  Dantzic,  where  Klas  Fleming,  the  powerful 
governor  of  Finland,  met  him  with  a  squadron  of  Swedish 
vessels,  Sigismund  and  his  queen  reached  Stockholm  in  Sep- 
tember 1593,  attended  by  a  brilliant  retinue  of  Polish  gentlemen, 
and  accompanied  by  the  Papal  legate,  Mala-Spina.  Duke 
Karl  stood  ready  on  the  castle  bridge  to  welcome  the  young 
king,  and  by  his  side  was  Abraham  Angermannus,  the  newly- 
elected  Lutheran  primate  of  Sweden,  whose  former  zealous 
opposition  to  Johan's  liturgy  made  his  appearance  as  unwelcome 
to  the  king  and  his  friends  as  the  sight  of  a  Romish  prelate  was 
to  the  Swedes.  Differences  soon  broke  out  between  the  uncle 
and  nephew,  and  the  duke,  returning  in  haste  to  his  own 
dominions,  left  the  council  to  manage  as  they  best  could  with 
the  king,  who  rarely  called  them  to  his  presence,  and  kept 
himself  almost  entirely  to  the  society  of  his  Polish  friends  and 
Jesuit  admirers.  Some  of  the  Swedish  nobles,  as  Klas  Flem- 
ing, Axel  Lejonhufvud,  and  others,  who  were  at  feud  with 
Duke  Karl,  attended  his  court,  and  a  few  even  professed  their 
adhesion  to  the  king's  religion  ;  but  the  mass  of  the  people 
looked  with  vexation  and  distrust  at  the  Roman  Catholic  cere- 
monials which  were  introduced  into  some  of  the  churches  of 


SCANDINA  V1AN  HISTOR  Y. 


Stockholm  ;  and  on  the  occasion  of  a  solemn  mass  for  the 
repose  of  the  soul  of  the  late  king,  the  Swedes  and  Poles  came 
to  blows,  and  blood  was  shed  within  the  church.  Foreign 
Jesuits  and  Swedish  Lutherans  preached  against  each  other  in 
the  different  pulpits  of  the  capital,  and  while  Sigismund  refused 
to  ratify  the  resolutions  of  Upsala,  or  to  confirm  the  election  of 
Angermannus  as  primate  of  Sweden,  the  Council  insisted  upon 
these  points  as  the  condition  on  which  alone  they  would  grant 
supplies  for  the  king's  coronation,  and  the  Estates  assembled  at 
Upsala  forbade  the  Papal  legate  to  take  part  in  any  public 
ceremonial,  and  threatened  the  Jesuits  with  death,  if  they 
entered  within  the  cathedral  doors.  Sigismund  replied  de- 
fiantly that  the  Estates  would  have  to  learn  the  difference 
between  an  hereditary  and  an  elective  crown,  and  that  his  con- 
science forbade  him  to  change  his  religion.  As  the  monarch  of 
an  hereditary  kingdom,  professing  a  different  faith  from  his  own, 
he  would  not  however  molest  that  faith,  he  said,  till  he  knew 
what  the  States  would  do  to  secure  the  liberty  of  those  who 
believed  the  same  as  he  did. 

In  the  spring  of  1594  Sigismund  met  the  Estates  at  Upsala, 
and  was  crowned  with  much  ceremony  in  the  cathedral  church, 
but  not  until  he  had  been  forced  by  his  uncle  and  the  Council  to 
sign  a  charter,  confirming  the  religious  liberty  that  had  been 
secured  by  the  Assembly  at  Upsala  in  the  previous  year.  Sigis- 
mund, with  his  habitual  weakness  and  insincerity,  agreed  to 
everything  demanded  of  him  at  Upsala,  yet  almost  as  soon  as 
he  reached  Stockholm  he  began  to  evade  all  the  obligations 
which  he  had  assumed.  Catholic  schools  and  churches  were 
opened,  the  Protestant  services  were  interfered  with,  and  the 
safety  of  those  who  attended  them  was  so  much  endangered  as 
to  make  it  necessary  to  go  armed  to  church.  No  redress  could 
be  obtained  from  the  king,  who,  after  appointing  Catholic 
governors  over  every  province,  returned  to  Poland.  There 
everything  was  in  disorder,  for  the  Polish  nobles,  regarding  them- 
selves as  all  of  equal  rank,  refused  obedience  to  the  officers 
appointed  to  maintain  the  laws.  The  Council  at  Stockholm  in 
the  meanwhile  declared  that  no  Swedish  king  could  govern  from 
abroad,  and  that  unless  Sigismund  returned  to  Sweden  without 
delay,  a  regent  must  be  named  to  act  for  him.  Thus  urged,  the 


SWEDEN  FROM  1568  TILL  1611.  265 

king  reluctantly  appointed  his  uncle  to  govern  in  concert  with  the 
Council  of  State,  but  at  the  same  time  he  sent  secret  orders  to 
Klas  Fleming  and  all  the  Catholic  provincial  governors  not  to 
obey  his  government.  Duke  Karl,  disregarding  their  opposi- 
tion, continued  to  conduct  public  affairs  with  great  vigour,  and 
in  1595  he  settled  a  favourable  peace  with  Russia,  by  which 
Esthonia  and  Narva  were  secured  to  Sweden,  while  Kexholm 
and  some  other  spots  on  the  confines  of  Finland  were  to  be 
given  back  to  the  Russian  Czar.  Klas  Fleming,  whose 
troopers  were  quartered  at  Kexholm,  and  who  liked  war  from 
the  excuse  it  afforded  him  of  keeping  up  an  army  in  Finland, 
evaded  the  surrender  of  this  place,  and  his  men  and  the  Duke's 
forces  soon  fell  into  hostilities,  which  only  ended  with  the  death 
of  Klas  in  1597,  when  the  territory  was  surrendered  to  Russia. 
Karl  as  Regent. — The  duke  and  the  Council  did  not  long 
go  on  in  unity,  and  before  the  surrender  of  Kexholm  there 
had  been  an  open  rupture  between  them,  and  Karl  had  ap- 
pealed to  the  general  diet,  and  been  at  once  named  by  them 
Governor-General  of  Sweden,  and  all  his  acts  approved  of  and 
confirmed.  From  that  moment  he  appeared  as  the  representa- 
tive of  the  bondar  and  lower  landowners  of  the  kingdom,  while 
the  higher  nobles,  whose  excessive  power  he  tried  to  crush, 
were  compelled  either  to  submit  or  to  leave  the  kingdom,  and 
carry  their  grievances  to  the  Polish  court.  By  his  tact  and 
abilities  the  Duke  broke  down  all  opposition,  and  after  having 
effectually  suppressed  the  rebellion  of  the  peasantry  in  Finland, 
known  as  the  War  of  Clubs  (Klitbbekriget],  and  rooted  out 
Catholicism,  he  found  himself  strong  enough  to  meet  and  over- 
come the  Polish  army  which  Sigismund,  in  1598,  brought  to 
Sweden  for  the  purpose  of  compelling  him  to  resign  his  power. 
At  Stangebro,  near  Linkoping,  the  rival  forces  met,  and  after  a 
fierce  engagement  the  royal  army  was  completely  routed,  and 
Sigismund  was  forced  to  agree  to  the  terms  proposed  by  his 
uncle,  who  insisted  upon  the  disbanding  and  dismissal  of  his 
Polish  troops,  the  surrender  of  all  the  disaffected  Swedish 
nobles  who  had  taken  refuge  in  Poland,  and  the  summons, 
within  a  period  of  four  months,  of  a  diet  of  the  Estates  of 
Sweden,  by  whose  decision  the  future  government  of  the  king- 
dom was  to  be  regulated.  As  soon  as  Sigismund  found  himself 


266  SCAN  DIN  A  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 

safe  out  of  his  uncle's  hands,  he  left  the  country  in  haste,  and 
returned  to  Poland,  leaving  his  friends  to  fight  and  suffer  in  his 
cause,  without  supporting  them  with  the  strong  armament  which 
he  had  promised  to  send  for  their  relief  as  soon  as  he  reached 
his  Polish  kingdom. 

In  the  following  year,  1600,  the  Council  and  Estates  of 
Sweden  sent  envoys  to  Poland,  demanding  the  immediate 
return  of  Sigismund,  in  default  of  which  they  declared  him  to 
have  forfeited  the  Swedish  throne,  and  requiring  that  in  that 
case  he  should  send  his  son  Vladislav  to  Sweden,  within  a 
period  of  six  months,  to  be  brought  up  in  the  Lutheran  faith,  in 
preparation  of  his  future  acceptance  as  their  king.  During 
this  interval  the  duke  advanced  with  an  army  into  Finland, 
where  Sigismund  had  powerful  friends  among  the  great  nobles, 
and  in  a  short  campaign  reduced  the  province  to  complete 
submission,  avenging  the  enmity  which  the  nobility  had  shown 
towards  him  by  the  summary  execution,  on  a  charge  of  treason, 
of  twenty-nine  of  their  leaders,  who  were  brought  to  the  scaf- 
fold in  Karl's  presence  at  Abo,  and  put  to  death  with  a  cruelty 
that  reminds  one  of  the  narrative  of  Christian  II. 's  Blood  Bath 
at  Stockholm.  As  Sigismund  had  taken  no  notice  of  the 
demands  of  the  Council  and  Estates  of  the  Realm,  he  and  his 
heirs  were  declared  to  have  no  further  claims  on  the  allegiance 
of  the  Swedish  people,  and  the  rights  of  Duke  Johan  of  Ost- 
gotland,  as  the  younger  son  of  the  late  King  Johan,  were  taken 
into  consideration;  but  when  that  prince  declined  to  be  brought 
forward  as  a  candidate  for  the  throne,  no  obstacle  stood  any 
longer  in  the  way  of  the  succession  of  Duke  Karl,  who,  how- 
ever, was  not  proclaimed  king  until  the  diet  met  at  Norkoping 
in  1604.  Sigismund,  in  the  meanwhile,  continued  till  his  death 
in  1632  to  reign  over  Poland,  whose  national  credit  and  pro- 
sperity were  severely  injured  by  his  incapacity  for  government 
and  his  bigoted  intolerance.  He  left  two  sons,  Vladislav  and 
John  Kasimir,  both  of  whom  became  in  turn  kings  of  Poland. 


SWEDEN  FROM  1568  TILL  1611.  267 


PART  III. 
THE     RISE    OF     SWEDISH     POWER. 

Charles  7X.,  1599-1611. — Karl,  or  Charles,  IX.  of  Sweden, 
as  we  should  rather  call  him,  was  the  only  one  of  Gustaf 
Vasa's  sons  who  inherited  his  good  sense  and  steadiness  of 
purpose,  as  well  as  his  abilities.  All  the  brothers  had  been 
learned,  able  men,  but  Karl,  the  youngest,  alone  knew 
how  to  make  good  use  of  his  learning,  and  how  to  turn 
his  great  talents  to  account.  He  was  a  stern  and  cruel  foe, 
and  never  knew  how  to  forgive,  but  he  was  just  and  for- 
bearing to  his  friends  and  relatives.  Like  his  father,  he  com- 
bined the  power  of  looking  closely  into  details,  and  keeping 
watch  over  the  management  and  expenditure  of  the  smallest 
sums  of  money  in  his  own  household,  with  the  capacity  for 
laying  vast  plans  for  the  future  greatness  of  his  kingdom.  It 
is  related  that  he  carried  his  economy  so  far  as  to  direct  that 
his  queen  herself  should  measure  out  the  yarn  and  thread  used 
by  her  maidens  in  weaving  and  sewing.  On  the  other  hand, 
his  history  shows  that  from  the  very  beginning  of  his  struggles 
with  Sigismund,  he  had  resolved  to  risk  his  fortune  and  even 
his  life  in  the  effort  to  make  Sweden  a  Protestant  state,  while 
the  great  object  that  he  had  in  view  during  his  latter  years  was 
to  support  the  Protestant  cause  in  Germany,  and  aid  in  crip- 
pling the  power  of  Austria,  which  he  foresaw  would  in  time 
gather  the  Catholic  German  states  around  her,  and  make  a 
desperate  effort  to  trample  down  the  Reformed  faith.  In  his 
will  he  enjoined  upon  his  wife,  son,  and  nephew  carefully  to 
maintain  the  friendly  relations  which  he  had  entered  into  with 
the  Elector  Palatine,  Frederick  V.,  the  l.andgraf  Moritz  of 
Hesse,  and  other  evangelical  princes  of  Germany;  an.l  the 
idea  that  Sweden  would  be  called  upon  to  prove  her  de/otion 
to  the  cause,  which  those  princes  upheld,  seemed  ever  present 
to  his  mind. 

In  Charles  IX.  the  Swedes  found  a  second  and  even  greater 


258  SCA  NDINA  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 


founder  of  their  national  glory  than  in  Gustaf  Vasa,  and  his 
struggle  with  Sigismund  is  looked  upon  as  the  most  important 
turning  point  of  their  religious  history.  At  the  death  of  Johan, 
Sweden  was  hovering  between  Catholicism  and  Protestantism, 
and  if  the  regent-duke  had  not  settled  all  further  dissent  by  the 
resolutions  passed  at  Upsala,  in  1593,  Sweden  would  probably 
have  been  numbered  among  the  Catholic  states  of  Europe.  In 
all  that  he  did,  Charles  had  always  had  the  lower  classes  on  his 
side,  and  he  well  knew  that  it  was  from  the  nobles  alone  that 
he  would  have  any  opposition  to  dread.  He  had  long  sus- 
pected that  a  party  existed  in  the  state  which  desired  to  see 
an  elective  monarchy  established  in  the  place  of  succession  to 
the  throne  by  heritage,  which  his  father  had  secured  for  the 
Vasas,  and  at  the  diet  of  Linkoping,  in  1600,  he  had  caused  a 
number  of  those  nobles  who  had  been  surrendered  to  him  by 
Sigismund  to  be  tried  for  treason  to  the  state,  and  for  dis- 
obedience to  his  orders  while  he  was  regent  of  the  kingdom. 
A  few  of  these  men  confessed  that  they  had  wished  to  subvert 
the  Lutheran  religion,  and  were  otherwise  guilty  of  the  charges 
brought  against  them,  and  they  were  pardoned  ;  but  others, 
including  the  heads  of  the  great  families  of  Sparre,  Bjelke,  and 
Bauer,  were  condemned  to  death,  in  spite  of  the  tears  and 
prayers  of  their  wives  and  children,  who  threw  themselves  on 
their  knees  before  the  duke  and  begged  for  mercy.  After  the 
beheading  of  these  men,  others  of  equal  rank  were  imprisoned, 
and  their  lands  taken  from  them,  while  some  were  banished 
from  the  kingdom,  and  the  duke  thus  found  an  opportunity  of 
crushing  his  private  foes  under  the  same  fate  that  was  awarded 
to  the  enemies  of  the  state. 

Femalts  allowed  to  reign. — The  first  act  of  Charles  IX.  after 
he  became  king  was  to  allow  men  of  burgher  and  peasant 
rank  to  have  a  legal  and  clearly-defined  share  in  the  delibera- 
tions of  the  Estates  of  the  diet,  and  he  succeeded  in  having  a 
change  made  in  the  laws  of  succession,  by  which  the  crown  was 
declared  hereditary  in  the  persons  of  his  female,  as  well  as  of 
his  male  descendants.  His  care  for  the  interests  of  the  lower 
classes  won  for  him  the  name  of  "  Bondarkonungen,"  the 
Peasants'  King,  which  was  well  merited,  inasmuch  as  he  appears 
to  have  been  always  on  the  alert  to  defend  this  order  of  his 


S  WE  DEN  FR  OM  1 568   TILL  1 6 1 1 .  269 

subjects  from  wrong  at  the  hands  of  the  higher  classes.  On 
one  occasion  when  the  widow  of  a  clergyman  was  proved  to 
have  had  an  injustice  done  her  in  a  lawsuit,  he  wrote  to  the 
unjust  judge,  telling  him  that  unless  the  poor  woman  at  once 
received  what  was  her  right,  "  his  stick  should  soon  be  made 
to  dance  the  polka  on  his  back."  He  encouraged  trade,  and 
by  laying  the  foundation  of  the  ports  of  Karlstad  in  Vasrme- 
land,  and  of  Gdteborg  on  the  west  coast  of  Sweden,  he  may 
be  said  to  have  created  the  foreign  commerce  of  the  kingdom. 
In  regard  to  the  working  of  the  Swedish  silver  and  copper 
mines,  this  king  made  great  improvements,  and  there  was  not 
a  branch  of  industry,  or  a  department  in  the  government  which 
did  not  feel  the  benefit  of  his  able  supervision.  But  while  he 
restored  order  to  his  disturbed  kingdom,  he  kept  his  subjects 
constantly  at  war,  either  with  Poland,  Russia,  or  Denmark,  and 
sometimes  with  all  three  states  at  once. 

Swedes  in  Russia. — In  1609  King  Charles  sent  a  Swedish 
army,  under  Pontusson  de  la  Gardie  and  Evert  Horn,  to  relieve 
Moscow  from  the  assault  of  the  impostor,  Demetrius,  who  was 
aided  by  Poland,  and  to  secure  the  succession  of  the  Czar 
Vasielievitz  Schuisky.  In  both  these  objects  the  generals  were 
successful,  but  a  mutiny  having  broken  out  among  their  men 
when  they  did  not  receive  the  pay  promised  them  by  the 
Russians,  and  many  foreign  auxiliaries  having  gone  over  to  the 
enemy,  De  la  Gardie  and  Horn  were  forced  to  fall  back.  With 
only  400  men  they  effected  a  successful  retreat  through  the 
lands  of  their  enemies,  and  without  any  further  loss  made  their 
way  to  the  Swedish  frontiers.  Charles,  in  no  way  discouraged, 
sent  another  army  into  Russia  in  1611,  which  took  Novogorod 
by  storm,  and  forced  the  Russians  to  sign  a  treaty,  by  which 
they  pledged  themselves  not  to  obey  any  of  the  various  pre- 
tenders, including  Sigismund's  son,  Vladislav,  but  to  acknow- 
ledge the  Swedish  prince,  Karl  Philip,  as  their  czar. 

The  Calmar  War,  1611  :  Charles'  death.— When  the  news  of 
this  success  reached  Sweden,  Charles  IX.  was  on  his  death-bed, 
and  the  kingdom  was  engaged  in  the  contest  with  Denmark, 
which  is  usually  known  as  the  Calmar  War,  in  consequence  of 
its  having  been  fought  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  town  of  that 
name.  This  war  was  mainly  brought  about  by  the  haste  and 


2  70  SCANDINA  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 

ambition  of  the  young  Danish  king,  Christian  IV.,  who  thought 
that,  considering  the  old  age  and  feebleness  of  Charles,  and  the 
youth  and  want  of  experience  of  his  son  and  heir,  Gustaf 
Adolf,  the  moment  was  favourable  for  retaliating  on  Sweden 
the  losses  which  Denmark  had  suffered  through  the  Swedish 
king's  monopoly  of  the  trade  of  Riga.  But  King  Christian 
had  formed  a  wrong  idea  of  Sweden  and  her  princes,  and  the 
result  of  the  war  was  not  one  for  which  he  or  Denmark  had 
cause  for  satisfaction.  King  Charles  IX.  died  at  the  age 
of  sixty,  in  1611,  at  Nykoping,  on  his  return  from  Calmar, 
after  the  settlement  of  a  short  armistice  with  Christian  IV., 
and  thenceforth  the  conduct  of  the  war  was  left  to  Gustaf 
Adolf,  the  future  hero  of  so  many  glorious  victories.  At  the 
time  of  his  death,  Charles  IX.  was  engaged  in  friendly 
alliances  with  all  the  great  Protestant  powers.  He  had 
promised  to  send  1,000  horse  and  foot  soldiers  to  the  Nether- 
lands in  the  event  of  the  continuance  of  the  war  against  Spain, 
in  return  for  which  he  demanded  the  right  to  export  salt  free 
of  duty  from  their  ports  ;  and  in  1610  he  had  sent  an  embassy 
to  England  to  demand  a  continuance  from  James  I.  of  the 
same  friendly  relations  that  had  existed  between  him  and 
Queen  Elizabeth,  who  from  the  time  of  his  brother  Johan's 
death  had  shown  her  goodwill  towards  him  and  approved  his 
policy.  He  also  wished  James  to  join  him  in  one  common 
alliance  with  the  Netherlands  and  Francfe  against  Austria  and 
Spain  ;  and  envoys  were  on  their  way  to  France  to  secure  the 
goodwill  of  the  King,  Henry  IV.,  when  the  news  of  his  murder 
by  Ravaillac  stopped  them.  Thus  for  the  first  time  in  her 
history  Sweden  had  been  brought  into  political  relations  of 
friendship  with  the  other  more  powerful  European  states,  and 
had  taken  an  independent  position  among  them.  With  this 
king,  moreover,  began  the  system  of  personal  influence  which 
during  the  next  century  and  a  half  the  Swedish  monarchs  exer- 
cised over  their  people,  until  at  length  the  history  of  the  king 
became  actually  that  of  his  kingdom. 

Charles  IX.  was  distinguished  as  a  poet  and  author  of  no 
mean  ability.  He  wrote  Latin  poems,  composed  numerous 
hymns  and  prayers,  which  were  long  in  use,  and  left  several 
treatises  on  political  subjects,  accounts  of  his  reign,  and  various 


SWEDEN  FROM  1568  TILL  1611.  271 

journals,  which  were  made  ample  use  of  by  his  son  in  the 
history  which  he  drew  up  of  the  events  of  his  father's  time. 
Charles  was  twice  married.  By  his  first  wife,  Maria  of  the 
Palatinate,  he  had  one  daughter,  Katerina,  the  ancestress  of 
the  later  Princes  Palatine,  and  of  the  Palatinate  branch  of  the 
Vasa  line  in  Sweden ;  and  by  his  second  wife,  Kristina  of 
Holstein-Gottorp,  he  had  two  sons,  Gustaf  Adolf  and  Karl 
Philip.  The  Princess  Katerina,  like  her  brothers,  was  a  good 
classic,  and  when  Henry  IV.  of  France  demanded  her  hand  in 
marriage  for  his  friend,  Prince  Henry  of  Rohan,  she  returned  a 
courteous  reply  in  an  elegant  Latin  letter,  composed  by  herself 
and  written  with  her  own  hand,  in  which  she  referred  the  matter 
to  her  father's  decision,  and  begged  her  suitor's  acceptance  of 
some  sable-skins  in  return  for  his  gifts.  Charles's  refusal  to 
give  his  daughter  to  the  Prince  of  Rohan  made  no  difference  in 
the  friendship  of  King  Henry,  who  offered  his  services  to 
mediate  between  Poland  and  Sweden,  and  continued  to  apply 
to  the  Swedish  government  for  nearly  all  the  cannons,  balls,  and 
steel  required  by  him  in  his  wars. 


CHAPTER  XX. 

SWEDEN    FROM    l6ll    TO    1644. 

Gustavus  Adolphus  ;  his  birth,  mode  of  education,  learning,  and  early 
practice  of  government — His  investiture  with  sword  and  shield — The 
Calmar  War — His  first  exploits — His  succession  —  The  Regency 
resign  their  power — Peace  with  Denmark — \Var  with  Russia — Treaty 
with  Russians — St.  Petersburg  on  Swedish  ground — Peace — Internal 
Government — Great  things  done  by  Gustavus — The  increase  of  power 
of  nobles — Riddarhuset — Talented  men  at  his  court — His  great 
generals — His  Polish  campaigns — His  narrow  escapes — The  war  in  Ger- 
many— The  Danish  king's  share  in  the  Thirty  Years'  War — Magdeburg 
— Its  siege — His  solemn  leaving-taking  of  his  Diet — His  little  daughter 
confided  to  the  Council — His  departure — His  war  cry — France  gives 
secret  aid — -Wallenstein — Gustavus  advances  on  Lu'tzen — His  prepara- 
tions— The  battle — King's  wounds,  his  death — Victory  of  Swedes — The 
body  of  the  slain  king  recovered — Its  removal — Body  embalmed — 
Heart  enclosed  in  casket  andkept  by  the  Queen — The  "Schwedenstein" 
— The  monument  erected  in  its  place — Personal  appearance  of  King — 
Generals  and  friends  of  Gustavus — Arrangements  for  government — The 
campaign  of  Swedes  in  Germany — Bernard  of  Saxe  Weimar  goes  into 
French  service — His  death — Johan  Bauer  — His  appearance  before 
Vienna — His  masterly  retreat — His  death— Lennark  Torstensson — 
His  great  talents — His  bodily  infirmities  -Called  "Swedish  Lightning" 
—  His  career  in  Germany — His  command  in  Denmark — His  resignation 
— Wrangel  succeeds— Peace  with  Germany — The  return  for  all  the 
sacrifices  made  by  Sweden. 

PART   I. 
THE     HERO-KING     OF     SWEDEN. 

Guslarns  AJolHnis,  1611-1632. — GUSTAF  II.,  Adolf,  or 
Gustavus  Adolphus,  as  he  is  generally  called  by  foreigners,  the 
most  accomplished  and  renowned  king  of  his  times,  was  horn 
in  the  town  of  Stockholm  in  1594.  From  the  age  of  ten 
his  father,  Charles  IX.,  made  him  attend  Councils  of  State 
and  the  sittings  of  the  diet,  and  soon  afterwards  he  was  taught 


SWEDEN  FROM  1611   TO  1644.  273 

to  receive  and  reply  in  Latin,  or  in  some  other  foreign  tongue, 
to  the  ambassadors  who  presented  their  credentials  to  the 
Swedish  king.  He  had  been  so  carefully  educated  under  the 
learned  secretary,  Johan  Skytte,  that  before  he  was  fifteen  he 
could  speak  Latin  fluently,  and  talk  German,  Dutch,  French, 
and  Italian,  as  well  as  if  each  language  had  been  his  mother- 
tongue,  while  he  understood  something  of  Polish  and  Russian, 
and  had  begun  to  learn  Greek.  Gustavus  to  the  close  of  his 
short  but  eventful  life  retained  his  early  love  of  learning,  and 
whenever  he  could,  he  devoted  one  or  two  hours  daily  to  the 
reading  of  history,  politics,  and  literature  with  his  former  tutor 
Johan  Skytte,  preferring  above  all  things,  as  his  friend  Axel 
Oxenstjerna  tells  us,  to  read  in  the  original,  Grotius'  "  Tractatus 
de Jure  .Belli,  et  Pads"  and  the  works  of  Xenophon,  whom  he 
regarded  as  the  greatest  of  all  military  historians.  When  King 
Charles  made  his  young  son  Grand  Duke  of  Finland,  and  Duke 
of  Esthonia  and  Vestmanland  (in  1609),  Skytte  accompanied 
him  and  helped  to  show  him  how  to  conduct  public  affairs  in 
accordance  with  the  regulations  of  the  Swedish  diet,  with 
which  the  secretary  was  well  acquainted,  as  he  had  made  the 
laws  and  customs  of  his  native  country  a  special  subject  of 
study. 

While  Gustavus  was  keeping  court  in  his  capital,  Ves- 
teraas,  he  underwent  a  careful  training  in  the  art  of  war, 
and  in  all  kinds  of  military  exercises  and  manoeuvres  ;  and 
thinking  himself  no  doubt  quite  an  expert  captain,  he  de- 
manded of  his  father,  as  a  right  belonging  to  his  birth,  that 
he  should  be  commander-in-chief  of  the  forces  in  the  war 
with  Russia.  Much  to  his  disappointment,  however,  the  king 
refused  his  request,  and  made  him  wait  till  he  had  reached  his 
sixteenth  birthday,  after  which,  in  the  spring  of  1611,  he  was, 
in  accordance  with  an  old  northern  custom,  declared  fit  for 
and  worthy  of  receiving  and  carrying  arms,  and  with  great 
state  presented  by  his  father  to  the  diet,  before  whom  lie  was 
solemnly  invested  with  sword  and  shield.  At  this  moment 
preparations  were  being  made  to  meet  the  young  Danish  king, 
Christian  IV.,  who  had  declared  war  against  Sweden,  ar.d  W:LS 
bringing  his  army  forward  to  besiege  Calmar.  And  the  first 
act  of  Gustavus  after  his  investiture  was  to  collect  the  Swedish. 


274  SCANDINA  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 

forces  in  Vestergothland,  and  advance  to  the  relief  of  the  be- 
leaguered town. 

The  Calmar  War,  which  ended  with  the  peace  of  Knaerod  in 
1613,  is  now  chiefly  memorable  for  having  served  as  the  school 
in  which  Gustavus  perfected  himself  in  the  art  of  warfare,  and 
gave  the  first  practical  evidence  of  those  great  talents  which 
made  him  in  later  years  one  of  the  most  noted  commanders 
the  world  has  seen  in  modern  times.  Sweden  remained  with- 
out a  king  for  two  months  after  the  death  of  Charles  IX.,  for 
in  accordance  with  his  will,  the  queen  and  his  nephew,  Duke 
Johan,  with  six  Councillors  of  State,  were  to  rule  the  kingdom 
till  the  wishes  of  the  people  could  be  made  known.  But  when 
the  diet,  which  met  at  Norkoping  in  December  1611,  declared 
that  the  Swedes  would  stand  by  the  promises  which  they  had 
formerly  given  King  Charles  to  accept  his  eldest  son  for  their 
ruler,  Duke  Johan  again  formally  renounced  all  claims  on  the 
throne,  and  he  and  the  queen  laid  down  their  powers,  although 
according  to  Charles'  will  they  might  have  retained  them  till 
Gustavus  was  eighteen. 

Conquests  in  Russia. — After  the  conclusion  of  peace  with 
Denmark,  Gustavus  carried  on  the  war  with  renewed  vigour 
against  Russia,  where  the  people  had  chosen  a  native-born 
prince  for  their  czar,  and  refused  to  receive  the  Swedish  prince, 
Karl  Philip,  to  whom  they  had  previously  offered  their  crown. 
Twice  Gustavus  himself  advanced  into  Russia  and  gained  great 
advantages  over  the  Russian  leaders,  until  at  length  the  new 
czar  found  himself  forced  to  agree  to  a  peace,  which  was  signed 
in  1617  by  him  and  the  great  Swedish  general,  De  la  Gardie, 
at  Stolbova,  a  little  town  on  the  Ladoga  Lake.  15y  this  treaty, 
Sweden  obtained  Ingermanland  and  Karelia,  with  the  sum  of 
20,000  roubles,  and  recovered  all  her  former  rights  in  Livonia, 
while  Novogorod  and  all  other  Swedish  conquests  in  Russia 
were  given  up.  When  Gustavus  met  the  Kstates  of  his  kingdom 
at  Stockholm  in  1617,  he  laid  before  the  diet  a  full  report  of 
this  treaty,  and,  after  drasving  a  vivid  picture  of  the  po\ver  of 
Russia,  and  the  danger  to  Sweden  of  having  neighbours  on  her 
flanks,  whose  boundary-line  stretched  from  the  Caspian  Sea  to 
the  frozen  ocean,  he  showed  them  on  a  map  how  by  the  peace 
of  Stolbova,  Russia  was  r.cnv  completely  shut  out  from  the 


SWEDEN  FROM  1611   TO  1644.  275 

Baltic,  "  and  that,"  he  added,  "  we  will  hope,  by  God's  help, 
may  always  prove  too  wide  a  jump  even  for  a  Russian."  The 
ground  on  which  St.  Petersburg  now  stands  was  then  Swedish, 
and  on  the  boundary-line  a  stone  was  erected,  on  which  were 
carved  the  three  crowns  of  Sweden,  surmounted  by  the  follow- 
ing Latin  inscription  : — 

"  Hue  rcgni  posuit  fines  Gustav  Adolphus 
Rex  Suconum,  fausto  nnmine  durd  opus.     Limites  positi  an.  1617." 

After  this  peace  Gustavus  turned  his  whole  mind  to  the 
careful  government  of  his  kingdom,  and  probably  no  other 
king  ever  did  so  much  for  the  welfare  of  his  people  in  so  short 
a  time  ;  while  in  all  his  measures  he  consulted  their  wishes, 
and  laid  before  the  national  assemblies  full  reports  of  his 
acts.  In  order  that  his  subjects  in  all  parts  of  the  kingdom 
might  have  the  opportunity  of  asserting  their  rights,  he  estab- 
lished parliaments,  or  high  courts  at  Stockholm  and  Abo,  called 
together  the  diet  every  year,  and  left  the  four  orders  into 
\vhich  it  was  divided,  to  consider  and  decide  for  themselves, 
in  separate  assemblies,  upon  questions  in  which  they  were 
specially  interested.  He  divided  the  nobility  into  three  classes, 
consisting  (i)  of  counts,  barons,  or  highest  nobles;  (2)  of  the 
descendants  of  Councillors  of  State;  and  (3)  men  of  noble 
descent  without  hereditary  titles  and  lands  ;  and  ordered  that 
;hey  should  meet  in  a  House  of  Lords  or  "  Knights'  House," 
known  as  Riddarhuset,  on  whose  books  all  entitled  to  a  seat 
were  to  inscribe  their  names.  He  granted  many  privileges  to 
the  noble  orders,  but  in  return  he  required  that  they  should 
give  their  services  to  the  state,  and  thus  he  secured  for  the 
crown  faithful  supporters  among  the  most  influential  men  in  the 
kingdom.  The  civil  and  military  services  were  put  upon  a 
regular  system,  and  a  stricter  discipline  and  order  were  intro- 
duced into  the  army  than  could  be  found  among  any  other 
troops  in  Europe.  Gymnasiums,  academies,  and  schools 
sprang  up  in  every  part  of  the  kingdom  ;  the  Upsala  University 
was  enriched  with  some  valuable  mines  and  lands  that  formed 
part  of  the  king's  private  family  property,  and  several  new 
trading  ports,  as  the  present  Goteburg,  were  established. 
Gustavus  had  the  good  fortune  of  securing  the  friendship  and 

T  2 


276  SCANDINA  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 

devotion  of  talented  men  in  every  department  of  the  state,  and 
at  the  moment  when  he  set  forth  in  1629,  on  his  fatal  but 
glorious  campaign  in  Germany,  his  court  was  celebrated  for 
the  number  of  able  military  leaders  and  statesmen  who  sur- 
rounded the  person  of  the  king. 

After  an  interval  of  peace,  war  broke  out  again  in  1621 
between  Sweden  and  Poland,  owing  to  the  obstinacy  with 
which  Sigismund  maintained  his  pretensions  to  the  Swedish 
crown.  Gustavus  in  person  conducted  this  war,  which  began 
by  his  conquest  of  Livonia  and  Karelia  and  the  taking  of  Riga, 
after  which  he  advanced  into  Polish  Prussia  and  gave  battle  at 
Egnen  on  the  Vistula  to  Sigismund's  troops,  which  were 
powerfully  assisted  by  an  army  of  Imperialists,  commanded  by 
Arnheim,  one  of  Wallenstein's  generals.  Gustavus  gained 
the  victory  on  this  and  so  many  other  occasions,  that  his  fame 
as  a  successful  commander  was  admitted  by  foes  as  well  as 
friends,  and  the  German  emperor,  Ferdinand  II.,  who  through 
his  great  generals,  Wallenstein,  Tilly,  and  Piccolomini,  had 
nearly  crushed  the  power  of  the  Protestant  cause  in  Germany, 
saw  the  danger  that  threatened  the  supremacy  of  the  Catholics 
unless  he  could  arrest  the  progress  of  the  Swedish  king.  Large 
armies  were,  therefore,  thrown  into  Poland  by  the  emperor,  on 
the  pretext  of  helping  his  ally,  King  Sigismund,  and  Gustavus 
found  himself  involved  in  a  fresh  war  at  a  time  when  lie  was 
specially  anxious  for  peace.  In  this  fourth  and  last  of  his 
Polish  campaigns,  he  was  often  in  great  personal  danger  ;  once 
he  only  saved  his  life  by  leaving  his  hat  and  scabbard  in  the 
hands  of  the  foes  who  had  surrounded  him.  Lven  then  lie 
would  probably  have  been  made  captive  if  a  Swedish  soldier, 
Erik  Soop,  had  not  come  to  his  rescue  and  shut  down  the 
trooper,  who  had  seized  upon  the  king's  arm  and  was  dragging 
him  by  main  tore,-  towards  the  enemy's  ranks.  In  writing  an 
account  of  this  butle  to  his  friend  and  chancellor.  Oxenstjerna. 
Gustavus  remarked  that  lie  had  "never  been  in  a  hotter  hath  .'" 
Yet  he  had  had  many  narrow  escapes,  for  once  a  ball  had 
carried  off  the  sole  of  his  right  boot,  and  on  another  occasion  a 
shot  had  struck  him  in  the  stomach.  He  had  moreover  re- 
peatedly had  his  horse  shot  from  under  him,  and  been  forced  to 
crawl  out  from  among  the  dead  and  dying,  and  light  on  foot  lili 


SWEDEN  FROM  1611   TO  1644. 


another  horse  could  be  brought  for  him.  After  the  battle  of 
Stuhm,  a  truce  for  six  years  was  signed  at  Altmark  in  1629 
between  Sweden  and  Poland,  which  left  Livonia  and  parts  of 
Polish  Prussia  in  the  hands  of  Gustavus. 


PART  II. 
THE     DEATH     OF    THE     SWEDISH     HERO. 

Gustavus  in  Germany. — The  Swedish  king  now  found  him- 
self free  to  give  the  help  which  he  had  long  promised  to  his 
Protestant  allies  in  Germany.  At  that  time  a  general  European 
war  seemed  to  be  impending.  The  cause  of  the  German 
Protestants  appeared  desperate,  and  all  the  other  European 
powers  which  had  adopted  the  doctrines  of  the  Reformation 
sympathized  with  them,  while  the  Catholic  states  generally, 
excepting  France,  which  was  moved  by  special  interests,  sided 
with  the  emperor.  Christian  IV.  of  Denmark  had,  as  we  have 
seen,  helped  the  German  Protestants  as  well  as  he  could,  but 
when  the  Imperialists,  under  Duke  Wallenstein,  entered  Slesvig 
and  seized  upon  Jutland,  he  had  been  forced  to  accept  what- 
ever terms  of  peace  he  could  secure.  Duke  Wallenstein 
had  refused  to  listen  to  the  envoys  sent  by  Gustavus  to  take 
part  in  the  negociations  for  peace  opened  at  Liibeck,  and  this 
and  other  circumstances  made  the  king  of  Sweden  see  that 
there  was  little  chance  for  him  to  avoid  a  war  with  the  emperor. 
He  had,  moreover,  incurred  the  anger  of  Ferdinand  II.  by 
opening  his  kingdom  as  an  asylum  to  all  Protestants  who  had 
been  persecuted  for  religion,  and  by  receiving  at  his  court  his 
outlawed  kinsmen,  the  Dukes  of  Mecklenburg.  Wallenstein 
had  been  chosen  to  conduct  the  war  against  Mecklenburg,  and 
this  great  general,  who  seems  to  have  been  excessively  jealous 
of  the  fame  of  Gustavus,  not  content  with  open  hostilities 
against  him,  offered  to  give  35,000  dollars  to  foment  a  rising 
in  Sweden,  and  in  his  eagerness  to  make  himself  master  01 
Stralsund,  which  opened  the  passage  to  the- Baltic,  he  declared 
that  he  would  never  rest  till  that  place  was  in  his  hands,  "  even 
though  it  were  to  be  bound  tight  to  heaven  with  chains  of  iron." 


278  SCANDINA  VI AN  H1STOR  Y. 

Gustavus  on  the  other  hand  felt  that  if  Stralsund  were  once  in 
the  hands  of  the  Imperialists,  his  career  would  be  closed  for 
ever,  and  his  plans  to  help  the  Protestants  of  Germany  rendered 
of  no  avail.  He,  therefore,  made  the  relief  of  that  place  his 
first  object,  and  after  sending  troops  to  aid  the  garrison,  pre- 
pared to  follow  in  person. 

When  he  had  made  his  preparations  for  this  great  and  event- 
ful undertaking,  Gustavus  called  together  the  diet  at  Stockholm 
on  the  igth  of  May,  1630,  and  laid  before  them  a  report  of 
the  oppression  and  misery  to  which  their  brethren  in  religion 
were  reduced,  and  the  dangers  which  threatened  Sweden 
unless  the  advance  of  Catholic  power  could  be  checked.  He- 
then  took  a  touching  farewell  of  them,  and  raising  his  little 
daughter,  Christina,  a  child  of  five  years  of  age,  in  his  arms, 
he  commended  her  to  their  care  and  fidelity  as  the  heiress  of 
his  crown,  and  closed  the  meeting  with  prayer.  Each  of  the 
several  orders  of  the  Estates  of  the  kingdom  assured  him  of 
their  devotion ;  and  having  entrusted  the  government  of 
Sweden  to  a  council  of  ten,  and  appointed  his  brother-in-law, 
the  outlawed  Count  Palatine,  Johan  Casimir,  to  be  director-in- 
chief  of  all  affairs  connected  with  the  levying  of  troops  anil 
other  preparations  for  war  during  his  absence,  he  embarked 
with  all  his  army,  and  landed  in  Germany  on  Midsummer's 
Day  in  ]  630. 

He  brought  with  him  only  15,000  men,  and  with  this  small 
army  the  Swedish  king,  trusting  in  his  favourite  watchword, 
Cum  Deo  et  victricibus  armis,  boldly  advanced  upon  his 
dangerous  course.  At  first  circumstances  favoured  him,  for 
Wallenstein,  having  fallen  into  disgrace  with  the  emperor,  was 
no  longer  among  his  opponents,  while  Cardinal  Richelieu  had 
pledged  himself  that  as  long  as  the  Swedish  king  could  keep 
an  army  of  30,000  men  on  foot  against  the  Imperialists,  he 
should  receive  an  annual  subsidy  from  France  of  400,000  rix- 
dollars.  The  rapidly  rising  power  of  the  house  of  Hapsburg 
presented  so  many  causes  of  alarm  to  France,  that  Richelieu 
was  glad  to  avail  himself  of  any  opportunity  of  weakening  the 
empire,  and  he  allowed  French  soldiers  to  join  the  ranks  of 
Gustavus,  and  gave  the  latter  all  the  help  he  could,  without 
actually  drawing  the  French  nation  into  the  war.  Some  of  the 


SWEDEN  FROM  1611   TO  1644.  279 

lesser  Protestant  German  princes  openly  sided  with  the  Swedish 
king,  but  the  more  powerful,  as  the  Electors  of  Brandenburg 
and  Saxony  who  stood  in  awe  of  the  emperor  held  aloof,  and 
threw  difficulties  in  the  way  of  the  advance  of  the  Swedish 
army,  which  in  consequence  failed  to  relieve  Magdeburg.  This 
unhappy  city,  after  a  long  and  most  daring  defence,  was  forced 
to  submit  to  the  Imperialists,  the  greater  number  of  the  citizens 
having  died  from  starvation,  or  perished  at  the  hands  of  the 
victors,  who  remorselessly  cut  down  the  women  and  children, 
or  left  them  to  be  burnt  alive  in  the  flames,  which  reduced 
Magdeburg  to  a  heap  of  ruins.  The  Elector  of  Saxony,  after 
having  met  with  the  most  cruel  treatment  at  the  hands  of  Tilly, 
entered  into  a  compact  with  Gustavus,  and  joined  with  him  in 
giving  battle  to  that  general  at  Breitenfeld,  near  Leipzig,  where 
the  Swedish  king,  through  the  superior  discipline  and  valour  of 
his  troops,  gained  a  signal  victory  in  1631.  Tilly,  who  had 
never  before  been  defeated,  and  who  had  had  a  very  much 
larger  army  in  the  field  than  Gustavus,  fell  back  upon  the 
Bavarian  frontier,  where  in  the  following  spring,  while  en- 
camped on  the  border  stream,  the  Lech,  he  was  again  attacked 
by  the  indomitable  Swedes  and  forced  to  meet  them  in  a 
long  and  fiercely  contested  engagement,  in  the  course  of  which 
he  was  mortally  wounded. 

After  the  death  of  Tilly  and  the  defeat  of  so  many  of  his 
armies,  the  emperor  resolved  to  recall  Wallenstein,  and  soon 
under  that  great  commander's  influence  fresh  armies  were 
enlisted  and  trained,  and  strong  defences  were  thrown  up 
against  the  advancing  foe.  But  neither  he  nor  Gustavus  would 
venture  to  offer  the  other  battle,  and  for  nine  weeks  they  lay 
with  their  armies  encamped  within  sight  of  each  other  outside 
the  gates  of  Niirnberg,  which  Wallenstein  had  threatened,  and 
the  Swedish  king  had  hastened  to  protect.  At  length  Gustavus 
made  an  assault  on  Wallenstein's  well-defended  camp  which 
failed,  and,  unable  to  bring  his  wary  foe  into  the  open  field,  he 
withdrew  to  recruit  his  own  sick  and  hungering  army,  whilst 
the  Imperialist  commander  as  quickly  broke  up  his  camp,  am: 
threw  his  forces  into  the  rich  lands  of  Saxony,  where  they  laid 
waste  everything  before  them,  and  the  elector  in  his  distress 
had  again  to  call  upon  the  Swedes  for  help. 


28o  SCA XDINA  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 

Battle  of  Lutzeti. — Gustavus  was  at  Neuburg  in  Bavaria  with 
his  queen  when  the  news  of  Wallenstein's  attempt  on  Saxony 
reached  him,  and  he  at  once  took  the  resolution  of  forcing 
Wallenstein  to  meet  him  in  the  field.  Ordering  all  his  troops 
to  advance  by  forced  marches  to  Erfurt,  he  joined  them  there 
on  the  28th  October,  1632,  and  rapidly  made  his  final  arrange- 
ments. On  the  morning  of  November  ist,  after  having  passed 
the  night  in  reading  and  answering  despatches,  and  sending 
his  instructions  to  the  council  in  Sweden,  he  took  leave  of  his 
wife,  whom  he  commended  to  the  care  of  the  Erfurt  citizens, 
and,  mounting  his  horse,  followed  his  army,  which  had  crossed 
the  Saale  on  the  3oth  of  October.  Gustavus  had  only  12,000 
infantry  and  6,500  horsemen  under  his  command  at  that 
moment,  and  Wallenstein,  who  knew  the  numbers  of  the 
Swedish  army,  did  not  believe  that  the  king  would  venture  to 
meet  him  with  such  a  small  force,  and  he  had  therefore  gone 
into  winter  quarters  at  Liitzen,  after  sending  his  general,  Pap- 
penheim,  to  Halle,  to  watch  the  movements  of  the  Swedes. 
The  surprise  of  the  Imperialists  was  great  when  they  found 
that  the  Swedish  king  had  brought  his  army  in  so  incredibly 
short  a  time  from  their  quarters  near  Niirnberg  to  the  plain  of 
Liitzen,  although  the  autumn  rains  and  the  character  of  the 
ground  seemed  to  make  the  passage  of  many  men  and  horses 
almost  an  impossibility.  The  greatest  contusion  prevailed  in 
the  camp.  Orderlies  were  riding  in  all  directions  to  recall  the 
scattered  Imperial  generals  and  their  brigades.  Soldiers  were 
kept  at  work  all  night,  throwing  up  entrenchments  along  the 
main  road  between  Liitzen  and  Leipzig,  on  the  north  side  of 
which  Wallenstein  had  drawn  up  his  men  in  order  of  battle. 
When  Gustavus  was  informed  by  spies  that  the  Germans  were 
quite  unprepared  for  his  attack,  he  exclaimed,  "Now  I  truly 
believe  that  the  Lord  has  given  my  enemies  into  my  hands," 
and  determined  not  to  delay  the  assault.  II is  anger  against 
the  Imperialists  had  been  strongly  excited  during  his  inarch  by 
the  sight  of  the  devastation  and  misery  which  they  had  brought 
upon  the  country  people.  Wherever  he  passed,  ragged,  half- 
famished  creatures  had  crawled  forth  from  their  ruined  huts  or 
from  the  poor  shelter  of  the  leafless  woods,  and  throwing  them- 
selves on  their  knees,  had  stretched  out  their  hands  towards 


SWEDEN  FROM  1611   TO  1644.  281 


him.  This  sight  had  moved  him  deeply,  and  when  he  noticed 
their  looks  of  appeal,  he  had  observed  to  those  near  him, 
"  These  people  worship  me  as  a  God  ;  I  trust  I  may  not  be 
punished  for  their  idolatry." 

The  morning  of  the  6th  of  November,  1632,  on  which  day 
Gustavus  lost  his  life  in  the  battle  of  Liitzen,  dawned  in  so  thick 
a  mist  that  the  two  armies  could  scarcely  see  beyond  their  respec- 
tive vanguards,  which  were  so  near,  that  in  reconnoitring  their 
foes  they  found  themselves  close  to  one  another.  At  an  early 
hour,  the  Swedish  army,  which  was  composed  of  many  Scotch 
as  well  as  German  auxiliaries,  engaged  in  prayer  and  sang 
Luther's  hymn,  "  Eine  feste  Burg  ist  tinser  Gott"  ("A  tower  of 
strength  is  our  God  "),  after  which  Gustavus  himself,  in  a  loud 
voice,  gave  out  his  favourite  hymn,  "Jesus  Christ  wiser  Hei- 
/and"  ("Jesus  Christ  our  Salvation  ").  Clad  in  his  usual  over- 
coat and  without  armour,  which  he  had  almost  entirely  laid 
aside  for  himself  and  his  soldiers,  he  mounted  his  horse,  and 
riding  along  the  lines,  addressed  his  Swedes  and  Finns  in  their 
native  tongue,  telling  them  that  the  enemy,  who  had  so  long 
evaded  them,  was  now  within  their  reach,  and  exhorting  them 
to  fight  for  their  God,  their  country,  and  their  king.  "  If  you 
fight  as  I  expect  of  you,"  he  said  in  conclusion,  "you  shall 
have  no  cause  to  complain  of  your  reward,  but  if  you  do  not 
strike  like  men,  not  a  bone  in  your  bodies  shall  ever  find  its 
way  back  to  Sweden."  To  the  Germans  he  spoke  strongly  and 
earnestly,  calling  upon  them  to  follow  him  bravely,  to  "  trust  in 
God,  and  to  believe  that  with  His  help  they  might  that  day 
gain  a  victory,  which  should  profit  them  and  their  latest  de- 
scendants." "But  if  you  fail  me  to-day,"  he  added,  "your 
religion,  your  freedom,  your  welfare  in  this  world  and  the  next 
are  lost/'1  Wallenstein  maintained  complete  silence,  and  his 
men  understood  from  the  cold  and  stern  looks  with  which  he 
scanned  their  ranks,  that  they  would  receive  little  mercy  at  his 
hands  if  they  failed  in  their  duty.  Gustavus  had  expected  to 
be  reinforced  by  Duke  George  of  Liineburg  and  the  Elector  of 
Saxony,  vho  had  both  made  great  protestations  of  gratitude 
and  devotion,  and  promised  to  bring  their  troops  to  his  aid, 
but  neither  of  them  appeared  at  Liitzen,  and  he,  therefore,  had 
to  engage  the  enemy  without  their  support. 


282  SCANDINA  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 

Death  of  Gustavi/s. — The  king,  who  himself  commanded  the 
right  wing  of  his  army,  was  the  foremost  of  all  to  advance 
against  the  enemy.  Waving  his  drawn  sword  over  his  head  as 
the  Swedes  and  Finns  responded  with  the  clash  of  arms  and 
loud  cheers  to  his  address,  he  cried  out,  "  Jesus,  Jesus,  let  us 
fight  this  day  for  thy  Holy  Name,"  and  giving  the  word  of 
command,  he  advanced,  while  the  whole  army,  as  each  regi- 
ment began  to  move,  caught  up  the  loud  cry  of  the  Swedish 
watchword,  '"'  God  with  us."  The  enemy  awaited  the  attack  on 
the  farther  side  of  a  road,  skirted  by  deep  ditches,  and  the 
Swedish  infantry,  alter  crossing,  were  met  with  such  overwhelm- 
ing numbers  that  they  wavered  and  fell  back.  On  perceiving 
this,  Gustavus,  who  had  led  his  own  division  over  the  road, 
hastened  at  the  head  of  a  troop  of  his  Smaaland  cavalry  to  the 
help  of  the  infantry.  Before  he  could  reach  the  road,  the 
three  brigades  under  Count  Niels  Brahe,  which  formed  the 
Swedish  centre,  had  advanced  to  the  charge  with  such  im- 
petuosity that  they  took  three  batteries  by  storm,  and  drove 
back  two  of  the  enemy's  squares.  When  the  news  of  this 
success  reached  the  king,  he  uncovered  his  head  and  uttered  a 
prayer  of  thanksgiving,  and  charging  at  the  head  of  his  cavalry, 
he  was  soon  in  the  midst  of  the  enemy,  with  only  a  few  of  his 
personal  attendants  near  him,  as  the  heavy  mist,  after  partially 
clearing,  had  become  so  dense  that  his  troop  had  not  been 
able  to  see  in  which  direction  lie  had  advanced.  At  that 
moment  a  pistol-shot  struck  his  horse  in  the  neck,  a  second 
shattered  his  left  arm,  and  while  he  was  turning  to  beg  the  Duke 
of  Lauenburg  to  help  him  off  the  field,  as  he  was  wounded  in 
the  foot  and  unable  to  dismount,  a  ball  entered  his  back,  and 
he  fell  off  his  horse,  which  dragged  him  a  short  distance  with 
one  foot  still  in  the  stirrup.  The  only  one  of  his  men  near 
him  was  a  German  page,  called  Lenbelfing,  a  youth  of  eighteen, 
who,  when  on  his  deathbed  a  few  days  after  the  battle,  made  a 
declaration,  written  do\vn  at  the  time,  and  sent  to  the  council 
in  Sweden,  by  which  it  appears  that  when  he  saw  the  king  fall 
he  had  dismounted  from  his  own  hor.^e  and  offered  it  to  his 
royal  master,  but  Gustavus,  unable  to  raise  himself,  had  stretched 
his  hands  towards  him,  and  while  he  was  trying  to  lift  him, 
some  of  the  enemy's  cuirassiers  had  come  up  and  asked  who 


SWEDEN  FROM  1611   TO  1644.  283 

the  wounded  man  was.  When  he  did  not  answer,  the  king 
himself  had  told  them  who  he  was,  on  which  the  men,  aiming 
their  pistols  at  his  head,  had  shot  him  dead,  and  stripped  the 
body  of  everything.  This  youth,  August  von  Lenbelfing, 
whose  report  forms  the  only  authentic  account  that  could  ever 
be  obtained  in  regard  to  the  last  moments  of  the  great  king, 
was  himself  so  dangerously  wounded  in  the  battle  that  it  was 
with  difficulty  he  could  be  carried  to  Naumberg,  where  he  died 
five  days  after  the  victory  of  Liitzen. 

Victory  of  Swedes. — Dismay  spread  through  the  ranks  of  the 
Swedes  when  they  saw  the  king's  horse,  with  empty  saddle  and 
bleeding  mane,  galloping  wildly  along  the  road ;  but  soon  their 
terror  changed  into  fury,  and  demanding  eagerly  of  Duke 
George  of  Saxe  Weimar  to  be  led  on  again  to  the  assault,  they 
bore  down  on  the  enemy,  and  after  a  fierce  fight,  which  was 
prolonged  till  nightfall,  they  gained  a  brilliant  victory,  and 
remained  masters  of  the  field,  where  among  the  12,000  dead 
and  wounded  that  lay  around,  the  body  of  the  slain  king 
was  found  covered  with  wounds.  The  close  of  the  battle  had 
been  the  fiercest,  for  at  the  moment  when  Duke  Bernhard 
thought  that  the  day  was  won,  Pappenheim  appeared  on  the 
field,  and  with  his  fresh  troops  attacked  the  wearied  Swedes. 
But  even  that  unexpected  repulse  could  not  long  retard  their 
victory,  although  it  thinned  their  ranks  fearfully,  and  left  line 
upon  line  of  Swedish  troops  lying  dead  upon  the  ground  in  the 
order  in  which  they  had  stood.  Pappenheim  fell  in  this  closing 
engagement,  and  after  death,  within  his  doublet  the  letter  was 
found,  saturated  with  his  blood,  which  Wallenstein  had  sent, 
recalling  him  with  his  10,000  men  to  augment  the  Imperialist 
army,  which,  according  to  this  authority,  consisted  of  upwards 
of  20,000  men.  The  victory  of  Liitzen  was,  therefore,  won 
against  double  the  victor's  forces,  and  it  threw  into  their  hands 
all  Wallenstein's  artillery  and  ammunition.  The  body  of  the 
king  was  carried  to  the  rear  the  same  night,  and  deposited  in 
the  church  of  the  little  village  of  Meuchen,  where  one  of  the 
attendant  Swedish  officers  made  a  funeral  address,  after  which 
the  schoolmaster  of  the  place  read  the  ordinary  form  of  prayer. 
The  body  was,  however,  found  to  be  too  deeply  cut  and 
mangled  to  remain  where  it  was,  and  was  carried  to  a  villager's 


284  SCANDINA  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 

house  and  laid  by  the  attendants  on  a  table,  while  the  school- 
master, who  was  also  a  carpenter  by  trade,  put  together  the 
rough  deal  coffin  in  which  it  was  carried  by  daybreak  the 
following  morning  to  Weissenfels.  Here  the  body  was  em- 
balmed, notwithstanding  the  aversion  with  which  Gustavus 
was  known  to  have  regarded  the  practice ;  and  after  being 
deposited  for  a  time  in  the  Castle  church  at  Wittenberg,  was 
conveyed  to  Sweden  under  the  guard  of  the  400  survivors  of 
the  Smaaland  cavalry,  at  the  head  of  which  the  king  had  fallen. 
In  the  summer  of  1634  the  remains  were  laid  with  great 
.solemnity  within  the  grave  that  Gustavus  had  caused  to  be 
prepared  for  himself  in  Riddarholms'  church.  His  queen, 
Maria  Eleanore,  who  had  been  passionately  attached  to  her 
husband,  had  caused  his  heart  to  be  placed  within  a  golden 
shrine,  which  she  always  carried  with  her,  and  reverenced 
with  such  devotion,  that  her  conduct  in  this  respect  more  than 
once  drew  upon  her  the  reproof  of  the  Swedish  clergy.  The 
day  after  the  battle  a  heavy  stone,  known  to  the  present  day  as 
the  ScJiivcdcnstcin,  was  dragged  by  some  peasants,  under  the 
direction  of  the  king's  groom,  Jacob  Eriksson,  from  a  neigh- 
bouring height  to  mark  the  place  where  Gustavus  fell  ;  but, 
unable  to  move  it  further,  they  left  it  within  forty  paces  of  the 
exact  spot  beside  the  bank  of  a  field,  where  it  remained  till  it 
was  replaced,  in  1832,  by  the  monument  erected  by  the  German 
people  in  grateful  remembrance  of  their  champion. 

Although  the  Imperialists  experienced  a  most  decisive  defeat 
at  Liitzen,  the  joy  of  the  Catholics  on  learning  that  their  most 
dreaded  foe  was  no  more,  fully  equalled  the  sorrow  and  fear 
which  the  news  of  Gustavus'  death  spread  through  every  Pro- 
testant country.  In  him  the  Swedes  lost  the  noblest  and 
greatest  of  their  kings,  and  the  world  at  large  one  of  the 
bravest  and  most  unselfish  rulers  that  has  ever  filled  a  throne. 
In  person,  Gustavus  Adolphus  recalled  the  type  of  man  that 
the  Northmen  associated  with  the  image  of  the  bravest  and 
strongest  of  their  early  national  heroes.  He  was  tall  and  well 
made  ;  of  fresh  ruddy  hue,  fair  skin,  and  clear  blue  eyes,  and 
with  light  yellow  hair,  ample  beard  and  bushy  moustaches, 
which  gained  for  him  among  foreigners  the  name  of  "the  gold- 
king  of  the  north."  lie  had  a  longish  face,  with  a  grave, 


SWEDEN  PROM  1611   TO  1644.  285 

earnest  expression,  and  there  was  a  natural  grace  and  dignity 
in  his  bearing  and  in  all  his  movements,  which  increased  the 
charm  and  attractiveness  of  his  person  and  manner. 


PART  III. 

THE     SWEDISH     GENERALS. 

Christina's  minority, — Although  many  great  plans  which 
Gustavus  had  formed  for  the  benefit  of  his  co-religionists 
perished  with  him,  the  fame  of  Sweden  was  well  maintained 
for  some  time  after  his  death  by  his  generals  and  by  his  devoted 
friend  and  minister,  Oxenstjerna,  who  induced  the  Protestant 
princes  of  South  Germany  to  enter  into  an  alliance  with  Sweden 
in  1633,  and  secured  the  continued  good-will  of  France.  At 
the  same  time  he,  in  concert  with  four  other  great  officers  of 
State,  conducted  the  regency  during  the  minority  of  Gustavus' 
only  child.  Christina,  following  in  all  respects  the  directions 
laid  down  by  the  king  himself  before  he  left  Sweden.  The 
government,  in  accordance  with  these  directions,  was  con- 
ducted in  live  national  courts  or  colleges  of  state ;  a  new  court 
of  law,  known  as  Gota  Hofriitt,  was  established  at  Jonkoping  ; 
the  kingdom  was  divided  into  Lan  or  districts,  each  presided 
over  by  a  bailiff  or  mayor ;  and  every  town  by  a  chief  magis- 
trate, the  president  of  whom  was  the  Overstathallar  or  head 
stadsholder  of  Stockholm.  The  army  and  navy  were  much 
augmented,  and  at  the  close  of  the  German  war  more  than 
100,000  men  stood  under  Swedish  colours ;  but  fully  half  of  that 
number  were  Germans,  intermingled  with  some  Scotch  troops. 

The  death  of  Gustavus  soon,  however,  changed  the  fortune 
of  the  Swedish  arms  in  Germany,  and  when,  in  1634,  the  brave 
but  over-hasty  Gustaf  Horn,  in  consequence  of  jealousy  on 
the  pan  of  Duke  Bernhard  of  Saxe  Weimar,  nearly  brought  an 
inglorious  defeat  upon  the  Swedes  at  Nordlingen,  where  he  wat; 
made  captive,  the  North  German  princes  began  to  withdraw 
from  their  alliance  with  Sweden,  and  before  another  year  the 
majority  had  followed  the  example  set  by  the  Elector  of 
Saxony,  and  made  a  humiliating  peace  with  the  emperor. 


286  SCA  NDINA  VI AN  HIST  OR  Y. 

They  even  seemed  to  aim  at  driving  the  Swedes  quite  out  of 
Germany;  and  although  Richelieu  sent  an  army  over  the 
frontier  to  co-operate  with  the  Swedish  forces,  he  was  an  un- 
trustworthy ally,  and  after  inducing  Duke  Bernhard  to  enter  the 
service  of  France,  he  on  the  death  of  that  officer,  who  died 
suddenly  in  1639,  not  without  suspicion  of  having  been 
poisoned,  incorporated  his  troops  in  the  French  army,  and 
employed  them  to  conquer  Alsace  for  France.  Gustavus  had, 
however,  left  other  able  commanders,  who  gloriously  main- 
tained his  reputation  ;  and  the  disaster  at  Nordlingen  was  soon 
effaced  by  a  gallant  Swedish  victory,  gained  by  Johan  Baner 
at  Wittstock  in  Brandenburg.  Not  content  with  this  signal 
success,  Baner  pushed  his  way  through  the  very  heart  of  Ger- 
many, threatened  Vienna,  and  surprised  Ratisbon,  where  he 
would  have  captured  the  emperor  and  the  members  of  the  diet 
holding  its  sittings,  if  a  sudden  thaw  had  not  come  on,  which 
prevented  his  crossing  the  Danube.  At  that  period  the  Swedes 
were  the  only  troops  who  ventured  upon  a  winter  campaign, 
and  Bane'r's  German  auxiliaries,  unaccustomed  to  the  hardships 
imposed  upon  them,  soon  deserted  him,  while  his  ally,  the 
Duke  of  Weimar,  left  him  almost  enclosed  by  enemies.  Under 
these  desperate  circumstances  he  nevertheless  succeeded  in 
safely  accomplishing  a  retreat,  which  is  regarded  as  one  of  the 
most  masterly  ever  effected  in  any  war.  After  almost  incessant 
fighting  with  the  Imperialists,  whose  cavalry  pursued  him  for 
eleven  days,  Baner,  in  a  dying  state  and  carried  on  a  litter,  led 
his  troops  safely  from  Ratisbon  to  Halberstadt,  where  he  died 
shortly  afterwards  in  his  fifty-fourth  year,  worn  out  with  disease 
and  hard  service.  Mis  remains  were  carried  by  his  men  into 
battle  with  them,  when  they  soon  afterwards  encountered  the 
enemy  at  VVolfenbiittel,  and  until  the  chief  command  was  taken 
by  another  of  Gustav's  generals,  Lennart  Torstensson,  the 
Swedish  soldiers  may  be  said  to  have  been  without  a  leader. 
The  appointment  of  Torstensson  to  the  command  quickly, 
however,  restored  order  and  confidence,  and  although  at  the 
time  he  joined  the  army  he  was  so  lamed  with  gout  as  to  be 
unable  to  use  hand  or  foot,  and  had  to  be  carried  on  a  litter 
into  battle,  hir,  brilliant  talents  at  once  gave  a  new  turn  to  the 
war.  The  skilful  and  rapid  mam.uuvres  of  this  great  com- 


SWEDEN  FROM  1611   TO  1644.  287 

mander  gave  him  the  name  of  "Swedish  Lightning"  and 
gained  for  him  the  reputation  of  being  fully  equal  as  a  com- 
mander to  his  master,  King  Gustavus.  In  the  campaign  of 
1642,  the  Swedes,  under  Torstensson,  advanced  upon  Vienna, 
defied  the  armies  of  the  emperor  in  his  own  states,  and  ended 
by  gaining  a  brilliant  victory  at  Breitenfeld  over  the  Archduke 
Leopold  and  the  great  General  Piccolomini,  and  taking  Leipzig 
from  the  Imperialists.  While  completing  arrangements  for 
penetrating  still  further  into  Southern  Germany,  he  was,  how- 
ever, recalled  to  Sweden  by  secret  orders  from  the  Council  of 
State. 

War  with  Denmark. — The  cause  of  this  sudden  recall  was 
the  anxiety  felt  by  the  Swedish  regents  at  the  turn  which 
affairs  were  taking  in  Denmark,  where  it  was  evident  that 
King  Christian  IV.  was  preparing  to  make  war  on  Sweden. 
To  frustrate  his  designs,  Torstensson,  in  obedience  to  his 
orders,  left  Moravia,  and  in  an  incredibly  short  time  crossed 
the  frontier  and  threw  his  troops  into  the  Holstein  lands,  on 
pretence  of  requiring  food  and  quarters  for  them.  At  the 
same  time  Gustaf  Horn  led  an  army  into  Skaania,  and  thus 
forestalled  at  all  points,  the  Danes  were  forced  to  meet  the 
Swedes  as  successful  invaders,  instead  of  carrying  the  war  into 
Sweden  as  they  had  intended.  We  have  seen  in  a  former 
chapter  how  completely  success  remained  with  Sweden  in  this 
war,  which  ended  with  the  peace,  signed  at  Bromsebro  in 
Bleking  in  1645,  by  which  the  power  of  Denmark  was  severely 
shaken  and  her  national  spirit  deeply  humbled.  After  the 
Danish  war,  Torstensson  made  a  fourth  and  successful  cam- 
paign into  the  hereditary  lands  of  the  German  emperor,  and 
inflicted  upon  the  Imperialists  at  Jaukowitz  the  worst  defeat 
they  had  sustained  during  the  war.  This  battle,  which  raged 
with  great  fury  during  the  whole  of  an  intensely  cold  and 
stormy  day  in  February  1645,  cost  the  emperor  the  lives  of 
4,000  of  his  best  troops,  and  left  in  the  hands  of  the  victorious 
Swedes  4,000  wounded,  including  the  chief  commander,  Field- 
Marshal  Hatzfelcl,  and  five  generals,  with  twenty-six  field  pieces 
and  seventy-seven  standards.  The  victory  of  Jaukowitz  placed 
the  imperial  throne  in  pressing  danger,  for  Torstensson  again 
penetrated  into  Austria  and  brought  his  troops  within  sight  of 


288  SC AND  IN  A  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 

the  walls  of  Vienna.  At  that  moment,  when  everything  seemed 
to  favour  the  great  Swedish  commander,  he  was  forced  to  re- 
treat, for  France  had  failed  to  send  the  reinforcements  which 
alone  could  have  enabled  the  Swedes  to  hold  their  own  in  the 
midst  of  the  enemy's  land,  and  the  few  troops  brought  to  their 
aid  by  the  Prince  of  Transylvania  were  so  undisciplined  that 
their  presence  was  a  hindrance  rather  than  a  help.  Torstensson 
was,  therefore,  forced  to  fall  back  upon  Bohemia,  where  in 
consequence  of  increased  feebleness  and  suffering,  he  resigned 
the  command,  which  was  at  once  entrusted  to  Karl  Gustaf 
Wrangel,  another  Swedish  hero  of  great  military  renown. 

The  manner  in  which  the  Swedes  had  again  and  again 
carried  their  arms  to  the  very  gates  of  his  palace  made  the 
emperor  anxious  for  peace,  and  at  length,  after  a  delay  of  some 
time,  the  treaty  of  Westphalia  put  a  final  end,  in  1648,  to  the 
fatal  but  glorious  war  between  Sweden  and  German}'.  The 
Swedes  went  out  of  this  struggle,  rich  in  glory  and  military 
renown,  but  poor  in  other  respects,  for  the  possession  of 
Western  Pomerania,  with  Rygen  and  Stettin,  Weimar  and 
Bremen,  and  the  promise  of  five  million  rix  dollars — which, 
moreover,  were  never  all  paid — were  but  poor  returns  for  the 
eighteen  years' sacrifice  of  life,  peace,  and  money  which  these 
wars  had  cost  the  mother-country. 


CHAPTER  XXL 

SWEDEN     FROM     1644    TO    1697. 

Christina,  successor  of  her  father  Gustavus  Adolphus — Her  bringing  up  — 
Her  classical  learning — Her  character — Her  resemblance  to  her  mother 
— Her  favourites  and  her  extravagant  gifts  to  them — Disturbances  in  the 
country — The  question  of  her  marriage  and  the  succession— Her  choice 
of  a  successor — Her  coronation — Her  reckless  squandering  of  lands  and 
money — Her  foreign  favourites — Bad  habits  of  nobles — Disguised 
Jesuits — No  money  to  supply  her  kitchen — Her  abdication — Her  conduct 
and  manner  of  giving  up  the  Crown — Succession  of  her  cousin  Charles 
of  the  Palatinate — Her  departure — Her  joy  at  crossing  the  frontier — 
The  tales  reported  of  her  later  life — Her  change  of  religion — Her 
return  to  Sweden  on  the  death  of  Charles  X. — Retires  to  Rome — Her 
pursuits  there — Her  death — Oxenstjerna's  death — The  Queen's  mother 
— Her  character — Conduct  and  fate — Charles  X.  a  soldier  and  con- 
queror— His  wars  and  conquests — His  wars  with  Denmark — His  assault 
of  Copenhagen— Slight  success  of  Danes — Charles's  mortification — His 
sudden  death — The  new  dynasty  begun  in  the  person  of  Charles  X. — 
I  lis  character  and  education  —His  efforts  to  benefit  his  people — Regency 
for  Charles  XI. — The  neglect  of  Regents — -Indifference  to  young  king — 
His  want  of  careful  training — His  mother — His  character  and  conduct 
when  he  began  to  reign — -His  early  love  of  amusement — His  first 
experience  of  war — The  defeat  of  Swedes  in  Germany— The  bad  con- 
dition of  the  army  and  fleet — The  war  with  Denmark — Charles  joins  in 
General  Peace  of  Europe — His  attention  to  government — The  Reduction 
of  the  old  Crown  Lands — The  recovery  of  money  from  the  late  Regents 
— Use  the  money  is  put  to — The  conduct  of  Charles  XI.  to  the  nobility 
• — His  assumption  of  absolute  power — His  efforts  to  benefit  the  lower 
orders — The  effects  of  a  general  famine — His  death — Succeeded  by 
his  renowned  son,  Charles  XII. 


PART  I. 
THE    ONLY     SWEDISH     QUEEN-REGNANT. 

Christina,  1644-1654.— CHRISTINA,  the  only  child  and  suc- 
cessor of  Gustavus  Adolphus,  had   been  brought  up  by  her 

u 


290  SCANDINA  VIAN  HISTOR  Y. 

aunt,  Katerina,  the  Princess  Palatine,  until  the  death  of  the 
latter  in  1639,  and  in  the  year  1644,  when  she  reached  the  age 
of  eighteen,  the  regency  was  absolved,  and  she  began  to  rule 
in  her  own  name.  She  had  inherited  much  of  her  father's 
talent,  and  was  perhaps  the  most  learned  and  accomplished 
woman  of  her  times.  She  had  received  the  education  of  a 
man,  and  under  the  tuition  of  the  learned  Professor  Matthhe, 
she  became  an  elegant  scholar,  and  when  she  came  to  the 
throne  she  had  read  Thucydides  and  Polybius  in  the  original, 
could  write  and  speak  Latin,  French,  German,  and  several 
other  languages,  and  was  familiar  with  the  theology  and 
philosophy  taught  in  the  universities  of  that  age.  She  had 
great  taste  for  the  fine  arts  and  for  the  pursuits  of  science, 
but  while  she  encouraged  scientific  men  at  her  court,  she 
also  spent  money  too  recklessly  in  rewarding  artistic  merit 
of  all  kinds.  From  an  early  age  she  showed  great  penetration 
and  insight  into  the  characters  and  motives  of  other  persons, 
and  had  a  fascination  of  manner  which  won  the  confidence 
and  devotion  of  those  about  her  person.  But  as  a  dangerous 
drawback  to  her  many  splendid  qualities,  she  had  all  the  way- 
wardness, caprice,  restlessness  of  mind,  fickleness  and  love  of 
display  for  which  her  beautiful  mother,  Maria  Eleanora  of 
Brandenburg,  had  been  noted.  She  lavished  crown  lands  and 
the  money  of  the  state  upon  favourites,  amongst  whom  the 
young  and  handsome  Magnus  Gabriel  de  la  Gardie  was  the 
most  noted.  This  nobleman,  a  son  of  the  great  general,  De 
la  Gardie,  was  sent  on  a  costly  embassy  to  Paris,  and  when  the 
aged  Chancellor,  Oxenstjerna,  and  other  experienced  coun- 
cillors remonstrated  against  his  extravagance,  the  young  queen 
declared  that  she  would  be  held  responsible  for  all  his  actions, 
besides  which  she  gave  him  lands,  which  brought  him  an 
annual  income  of  80.000  rix  dollars. 

In  the  meanwhile  the  national  Estates  had  been  split  up  into 
parties,  the  aristocrats  being  led  by  Axel  Oxenstjerna,  and  the 
democrats,  with  whom  the  queen  sided,  by  Johan  Skytte.  The 
clergy  struggled  to  maintain  their  independence  under  the 
oppressive  patronage  of  the  nobles,  and  the  peasants  agitated 
to  recover  some  of  the  power  which  the  great  Gustavus  Vasa 
had  granted  them,  but  which  his  successors  had  by  degrees 


SWEDEN  FROM  1644  TO  1697.  291 

taken  from  them.  The  kingdom  was  in  a  ferment,  and  a  civil 
war  seemed  to  be  unavoidable.  The  council  urged  upon  the 
queen  to  marry,  and  her  cousin,  Karl  Gustaf  of  the  Palatinate, 
entreated  her  to  fulfil  the  promise  which  she  had  given  him  in 
earlier  years  of  choosing  him  for  her  husband.  At  length, 
alter  showing  great  reluctance  to  consider  the  question  of  her 
marriage  and  the  succession  to  the  throne,  she  proposed  him 
for  her  successor  ;  and  when  pressed  by  the  council  and  by  the 
prince  himself  to  give  him  her  hand,  she  would  only  pledge  her- 
self so  far  as  to  declare  that  she  would  not  make  any  other  man 
her  husband.  After  much  opposition,  Karl  Gustaf  was  declared 
successor  to  the  throne  in  the  event  of  the  queen  having  no 
children  of  her  own,  and  when  she  had  carried  this  point,  she 
made  magnificent  preparations  for  her  own  coronation,  and 
was  crowned  with  more  state  than  had  as  yet  been  seen  in 
Sweden. 

Christina's  extravagance. — The  few  years  of  Christina's  reign 
after  her  solemn  coronation  were  disquieted  by  continued  dis- 
sensions in  the  diet,  attempts  at  revolts,  and  by  a  general 
distress,  which  was  greatly  increased  by  her  profuse  wasteful- 
ness and  her  reckless  squandering  of  the  property  of  the  crown. 
As  early  as  the  year  1648  she  had  conceived  the  idea  of  abdi- 
cating, but  being  hindered  by  her  old  friends  and  councillors, 
she  deferred  carrying  out  her  wishes  till  1654.  During  that 
interval  her  conduct  was  such  as  to  leave  her  people  but  little 
cause  to  regret  the  step  she  had  resolved  to  take.  Lands  and 
titles  and  patents  of  nobility  were  scattered  abroad  among  all 
classes,  so  that  during  her  reign  the  Riddarhus  was  augmented 
by  32  new  counts  and  barons  and  by  the  admission  of  the 
representatives  of  428  freshly  ennobled  families,  including  the 
court  tailor,  Jan  Holm,  who  assumed  the  proud  name  of  Lei- 
jonkrona.  The  same  baronies  were  so  often  disposed  of  by 
sale,  that  the  matter  was  taken  up  by  the  council  in  1651,  when 
the  clerk  of  a  chancery  secretary  was  publicly  beheaded  for 
having  sold  forty-two  false  patents. 

Under  the  influence  of  the  new  favourites,  Don  Antonio 
Pimentelli,  Spanish  ambassador  at  her  court,  and  her  French 
physician,  Bourdelot,  Christina  became  more  and  more  ab- 
sorbed in  frivolous  pursuits  ;  and  finding  the  cares  of  govern- 

u  2 


292  SC AND  IN  A  VI AN  HIS  TOR  Y. 

ment  more  and  more  irksome,  she  gave  up  all  her  time  to 
amusement.  Singers,  actors,  dancers,  and  jugglers  were  in- 
vited to  Stockholm,  and  soon  the  queen  herself  took  part  in 
the  plays  and  ballets  performed  at  the  palace.  Cromwell's 
•  representative,  Whitelocke,  has  left  us  a  report  in  his 
journal  of  the  habits  and  pursuits  of  the  young  Swedish  nobles 
when  he  went  to  Upsala,  in  1654,  to  obtain  the  queen's  signa- 
ture to  a  treaty  concluded  between  Sweden  and  England,  and 
he  expresses  his  surprise  and  reprobation  at  the  sight  of  young 
nobles  going  along  the  streets  on  a  Sunday,  singing  aloud, 
and  at  last  kneeling  down  in  the  market-place  and  drinking 
the  queen's  health  with  loud  huzzahs.  Among  the  numerous 
foreigners  who  flocked  into  Sweden  were  Jesuits  in  disguise, 
who  came  in  the  hope  of  converting  Queen  Christina,  perhaps 
invited  by  herself;  for  although  she  continued  while  in  Sweden 
and  for  a  year  after  her  abdication  publicly  to  profess  Lutheran 
doctrines,  she  had  long  expressed  great  interest  in  the  history 
of  Catholicism,  and  in  1655  she  made  a  formal  declaration  of 
her  adhesion  to  the  faith  of  the  Romish  Church.  Her  extrava- 
gance exhausted  all  sources  of  income,  and  twice  the  royal 
kitchen  had  to  be  closed  for  want  of  money,  and  the  queen's 
servants  were  forced  to  beg  a  dinner  for  her  and  themselves. 

Her  Abdication.— Early  in  the  year  1654  Christina  informed 
her  council  of  her  fixed  resolution  to  give  up  the  throne,  and 
at  a  diet  held  in  May  at  Upsala  the  terms  of  abdication  were 
settled,  and  after  much  discussion  it  was  agreed  that  she  was  to 
hold  Oeland,  Gotland,  Oesel,  and  other  districts,  with  a  revenue 
of  240,000  rix  dollars.  On  the  morning  of  June  6th  the  final 
ceremony  was  accomplished.  The  queen  came  forth  from  her 
room,  with  the  crown  on  her  head,  wearing  her  coronation 
robes  over  a  simple  white  dress,  and  bearing  in  her  hands  the 
globe  and  sceptre,  and  then,  taking  her  stand  before  the  throne 
in  the  great  hall  of  the  palace  at  Upsala,  she  made  farewell 
speeches  to  her  council  and  the  crown  prince ;  and  at  the  close 
of  her  address-  she  walked  down  the  steps  of  the  dais  with  a 
firm  tread,  and  laid  aside  the  regalia  one  by  one.  All  present 
were  moved  at  the  spectacle,  and  even  men  were  seen  to  shed 
tears  as  they  watched  the  young  queen  giving  up  all  the  signs 
of  royalty;  for  at  that  moment  the  old  companions  of  her 


SWEDEN  FROM  1644  TO  1697.  293 

father,  who  had  watched  faithfully  over  her  in  her  childhood, 
forgot  all  causes  of  anger  against  her  in  their  grief  at  the  step 
she  was  taking.  In  the  afternoon  of  the  same  day  the  crown 
prince  was  proclaimed,  and  crowned  in  the  presence  of  the 
diet  at  the  cathedral,  and  on  the  following  day  Christina  left 
Upsala.  Twelve  ships  of  war  were  lying  ready  off  Calmar  to 
convey  her  and  her  suite  from  Sweden,  but  instead  of  embark- 
ing from  there,  she  passed  through  Halmstad  and  crossed  the 
Sound  to  Denmark,  and  proceeded  on  her  travels  through 
Germany  and  the  Low  Countries.  She  took  only  four  Swedes 
with  her,  having  dismissed  all  the  rest  of  her  suite,  and  when 
she  reached  a  little  brook  which  then  formed  part  of  the 
boundary-line  between  Sweden  and  the  Danish  territories  of 
Skaania,  she  got  out  of  her  carriage,  and  springing  lightly 
over  the  stream,  exclaimed,  "  At  last  I  am  free  !  and  out  of 
Sweden,  to  which  I  hope  I  may  never  return." 

And  thus  Queen  Christina  passed  like  a  meteor  from 
amongst  her  people.  Her  change  of  religion,  and  the  strange 
tales  which  were  from  time  to  time  brought  to  Sweden  of  her 
conduct  and  mode  of  life,  estranged  her  more  and  more  from 
her  former  subjects.  She  was  at  first  received  with  the 
greatest  respect  and  enthusiasm  in  the  Catholic  countries  that 
she  visited  ;  but  her  eccentric  conduct,  her  contempt  for  all 
feminine  pursuits,  her  constant  want  of  money,  and  her  dis- 
regard of  the  laws  of  the  lands  in  which  she  took  up  her  abode, 
made  her  in  time  an  unwelcome  and  troublesome  guest,  and 
one  prince  after  the  other  forced  her  to  leave  his  dominions.  At 
the  death  of  her  cousin  and  successor,  Karl  X.  Gustaf,  as  he  was 
called  by  the  Swedes,  and  who  is  known  to  us  as  Charles  X., 
she  returned  to  Sweden  and  claimed  the  crown  for  herself, 
but  neither  then,  nor  in  1667,  when  she  renewed  her  pre- 
tensions, would  the  council  encourage  her  hopes,  and  after  a 
final  attempt  to  gain  the  vacant  throne  of  Poland  in  1668,  she- 
gave  up  all  schemes  of  ever  reigning  again,  and  retired  to 
Rome,  where  she  died  in  1689  at  the  age  of  sixty-three.  Her 
latter  years  were  spent  in  the  midst  of  learned  men,  and  in  the 
indulgence  of  her  taste  for  collecting  scarce  books  and  costly 
works  of  art ;  and  while  she  lived,  her  talents,  strange  history, 
and  eccentric  conduct,  made  her  an  object  of  wonder  and 


294  SCANDINA  VIAN  HISTOR  Y. 

interest  to  every  country  in  Europe.  Her  father's  friend, 
Oxenstjerna,  whose  counsels  had  offended  her,  did  not  long 
survive  his  dismissal  from  her  service,  and  his  death  in  1654 
saved  him  from  the  pain  of  knowing  how  thoroughly  she 
had  turned  aside  from  all  the  principles  which  Gustavus 
Adolphus  had  made  the  guides  of  his  actions,  and  for  the 
maintainance  of  which  he  had  sacrificed  his  life. 

Christina's  mother,  Maria  Eleanore  of  Brandenburg,  a  fickle, 
frivolous  woman,  incapable  of  taking  part  in  business,  had  been 
kept  as  much  away  from  the  young  queen  as  was  practicable, 
since  her  caprice  and  incapacity  were  well  known  to  Oxenstjerna 
and  the  old  friends  of  Gustavus.  Dissatisfied  with  the  little 
influence  allowed  her  by  the  regency,  she  had  fled  from  Sweden 
in  disguise  in  1640,  accompanied  only  by  a  few  attendants, 
and  embarking  in  a  Danish  man-of-war,  she  had  gone  to  Den- 
mark and  remained  away  for  many  years.  To  the  end  of  a 
long  life  this  queen  maintained  a  querulous  discontent  towards 
all  who  refused  compliance  with  her  demands,  and  died 
unregretted. 

PART  II. 

SWEDISH    CONQUESTS. 

Charles  X.,  1656-1660. — The  short  reign  of  Charles  X.  from 
1655  ^0  1660  was  a  time  of  great  disorder  and  unquiet  in 
Sweden.  To  obtain  money  to  carry  on  the  government,  Charles 
was  forced  to  exact  from  the  nobles  the  restitution  of  one- 
fourth  of  the  crown  lands  which  had  been  granted  to  them 
under  former  rulers.  And  to  keep  down  the  restless  discon- 
tent which  had  sprung  up  under  the  late  queen,  he  resolved  to 
engage  the  people  in  active  war ;  but  it  was  not  without  diffi- 
culty that  he  obtained  the  consent  of  the  diet  to  make  the 
necessary  preparations,  and  for  a  time  the  question  remained 
undetermined  whether  the  arms  of  Sweden  should  be  turned 
against  Denmark  or  Poland.  The  Danish  traitor,  Korfit/, 
Ulfeld,  strongly  urged  the  advisability  of  attacking  Denmark, 
whose  unprotected  condition  was  well  known  to  him,  but  the 
ill-timed  demand  of  the  Polish  king,  Johan  Kasimir,  to  be  pro- 


SWEDEN  FROM  1644  TO  1697.  295  * 

claimed  the  true  heir  to  Christina's  throne,  drew  the  first  attack 
upon  Poland. 

Charles  X.  was  born  to  be  a  soldier  and  a  conqueror,  and 
the  success  and  rapidity  with  which  he  overran  all  Poland  and 
crushed  the  Polish  army  in  a  three  days'  engagement  at  Warsaw 
in  1656,  showed  that  he  was  a  worthy  pupil  and  successor  of 
his  uncle,  the  great  Gustavus  Adolphus.  But  it  was  easier  for 
him  to  make  conquests  than  to  keep  them,  and  when  the 
Russians  in  their  jealousy  of  the  increasing  power  of  Sweden 
took  part  in  the  war,  and  began  to  attack  Livonia  and  Esthonia, 
while  an  imperial  army  advanced  into  Poland  to  assist  the 
Poles,  who,  infuriated  at  the  excesses  of  the  Swedish  soldiers, 
had  risen  en  masse  against  them,  Charles  saw  the  expediency  of 
retreating ;  and  leaving  only  a  few  detachments  of  troops  to 
watch  his  enemies,  he  turned  upon  Denmark.  This  war,  which 
was  closed  by  the  peace  signed  at  Roeskilde  in  1658,  enriched 
Sweden  at  the  expense  of  Denmark,  and  gave  to  the  former  the 
old  provinces  of  Skaania,  Halland,  and  Bleking,  by  which 
the  Swedish  monarchy  obtained  natural  and  well-defined 
boundaries.  The  success  of  this  first  Danish  war,  in  which 
Denmark  for  a  time  lay  crushed  under  the  power  of  the  Swedish 
king,  emboldened  him  to  renew  his  attacks,  and  between  1658 
and  1660  Charles  X.  made  war  five  times  on  the  Danish 
monarch ;  more  than  once  laid  siege  to  Copenhagen  ;  and, 
under  his  able  captain,  Wrangel,  nearly  destroyed  the  Danish 
fleet.  At  the  close  of  1659,  when  it  seemed  as  if  Denmark 
must  be  wholly  subjugated  by  Sweden,  the  English  and  Dutch, 
alarmed  at  the  ambition  of  the  Swedish  king,  sent  an  allied 
fleet  into  the  Cattegat  to  operate  with  the  Danes,  whose 
courage  and  confidence  rising  with  every  slight  success,  re- 
pulsed vigorously  the  attacks  of  the  Swedes  on  the  island  of 
Fyen.  Charles,  unaccustomed  to  defeat,  and  annoyed  at  the 
failure  of  his  plans,  determined  to  turn  the  war  directly  against 
Norway,  and  for  this  purpose  called  together  the  diet  at  Gote- 
borg,  and  demanded  new  troops  and  fresh  subsidies.  While 
the  Estates  were  sitting,  Charles  X.  was  seized  with  severe 
illness,  and  died  suddenly  in  the  winter  of  1660,  aged  thirty- 
eight. 

With  Charles  X.  a  new  dynasty — that  of  the  Palatinate — 


296  SCANDINAVIAN  HISTORY. 

began  in  Sweden  ;  but  although  he  was  the  son  of  the  Count 
Palatine,  Johan  Kasimir,  he  can  scarcely  be  reckoned  as  a 
foreign  prince,  for  he  had  been  brought  up  in  Sweden,  and 
was  thoroughly  Swedish  in  speech,  habits,  and  modes  of  think- 
ing. His  mother,  Katerina,  the  only  sister  of  Gustavus 
Adolphus,  had  been  careful  to  educate  him  in  a  manner  that 
might  fit  him  for  ruling  over  Sweden,  as  she  had  from  his  child- 
hood entertained  the  hope  that  he  would  marry  his  young 
cousin,  Queen  Christina.  He  was  a  man  of  sound  sense  and 
strong  will,  and  possessed  great  capacity  for  ruling ;  but  his 
insatiable  thirst  for  war  so  thoroughly  absorbed  his  time  and 
thoughts  that  he  was  not  able  to  effect  much  for  the  good  of 
his  people  during  his  short  reign.  The  few  reforms  which  he 
brought  about  in  the  government  showed  however  an  anxious 
endeavour  to  extend  the  resources  of  the  working-classes  by 
introducing  and  encouraging  manufactures,  while  he  helped  to 
augment  the  national  credit  by  bringing  better  order  into  the 
finances. 

Regency  under  Charles  XL,  1660-1675. — By  the  early  death 
of  Charles  X.,  Sweden  was  again  brought  under  the  rule  of  a 
regency,  for  his  son  and  successor,  Charles  XL,  was  only  four 
years  old  when  he  became  king.  By  the  will  of  his  father,  the 
queen-mother,  Hedvig  Eleanore  of  Holstein-Gottorp,  and  his 
uncle,  Duke  Johan,  were  appointed  members  of  the  council  of 
regency,  which  also  included  Magnus  cle  la  Gardie,  his  uncle 
by  marriage.  But  the  chief  officers  of  state,  objecting  to  the 
presence  of  so  many  members  of  the  royal  family,  tried  to  set 
aside  the  will  of  the  late  king,  on  the  ground  that  a  woman 
could  not  sit  at  the  council  board,  and  that  Duke  Johan,  as  a 
German-born  prince,  was  also  excluded.  These  difficulties 
threatened  at  the  very  outset  to  disturb  the  peace  of  the 
kingdom,  but  as  the  diet  confirmed  all  the  provisions  made 
by  the  late  king,  the  regency  was  carried  on  in  the  form  which 
he  had  prescribed,  but  with  such  a  spirit  of  dissatisfaction  and 
mutual  ill-will  among  the  members  that  they  appeared  always 
more  eager  to  gratify  their  own  prejudices  and  thwart  one 
another  than  to  attend  to  the  welfare  of  the  monarchy.  Every 
department  of  the  government  was  left  to  suffer  from  mis- 
management, the  army  and  navy  were  neglected,  the  defences 


SWEDEN  FROM  1644  TO  1697.  297 


of  the  frontiers  fell  into  decay,  and  the  public  servants  were 
unable  to  procure  their  pay.  To  relieve  the  great  want  of 
money,  the  regency  accepted  subsidies,  or  payments  of 
money  from  foreign  states  to  maintain  peace  towards  them, 
and  hired  out  troops  to  serve  in  other  countries. 

In  this  state  of  things  the  young  king  grew  up  without 
receiving  any  very  careful  education,  for  the  queen-mother  was  a 
woman  of  narrow  mind,  who  neither  cared  for  nor  knew  anything 
of  intellectual  pursuits,  and  thought  more  of  his  health  than  of 
his  learning,  while  the  rest  of  the  council  gave  themselves  no 
trouble  about  the  manner  in  which  he  was  being  trained. 
Charles  was  declared  of  age  in  his  eighteenth  year,  when  the 
regency  was  dissolved,  and  he  was  left  to  rule  in  his  own 
name.  At  that  time  he  was  noted  for  self-will  and  obstinacy, 
great  distaste  for  business,  and  mistrust  towards  the  council 
and  the  higher  nobility ;  but  although  he  seemed  to  find  his 
greatest  delight  in  riding,  hunting,  and  fencing,  and  spent 
most  of  his  time  among  companions  of  his  own  age,  he  never 
showed  any  vicious  tastes,  and  was  noted  from  his  earliest 
youth  for  his  attention  to  his  religious  duties  and  for  his 
blameless  mode  of  conduct.  But  he  was  not  left  long  in  the 
enjoyment  of  mere  exercises  of  amusement,  for  in  1674 
Louis  XIV.  of  France,  in  conformity  with  the  treaty  which 
the  regents  had  concluded  with  him,  called  upon  the  young 
Swedish  king  to  help  him  in  the  war  which  he  was  carrying 
on  against  the  German  princes.  Charles  sent  an  army  into 
Germany,  which  advanced  without  opposition  into  the  heart 
of  Brandenburg,  but  before  these  forces  could  form  a  junc- 
tion with  the  French  troops  then  encamped  in  the  Rhine-lands, 
the  Elector  came  upon  them  unawares  at  Fehrbellin  and  de- 
feated them.  The  losses  of  the  Swedes  on  this  occasion  were 
not  great,  but  the  result  of  their  defeat  was  to  give  encourage- 
ment to  the  old  rivals  of  Sweden;  and  early  in  1675  both 
Holland  and  Denmark  declared  war  against  the  Swedish  king, 
who,  finding  that  he  had  been  left  by  the  regency  almost  with- 
out army,  navy,  or  money,  resolved  for  the  future  to  take  the 
management  of  public  affairs  entirely  into  his  own  hands. 

Long  Peace  under  Charles  XI. — There  had  been  peace  in 
Sweden  since  the  beginning  of  this  king's  reign,  for  the  regents, 


298  SCANDINAVIAN  HISTORY. 

feeling  the  necessity  of  bringing  the  various  wars  in  which 
Charles  X.  had  plunged  the  kingdom  to  an  end,  had  shown 
great  promptness  in  agreeing  to  the  terms  proposed  by  the 
enemy.  Johan  Casimir  of  Poland  on  his  part  had  smoothed 
the  way  for  peace  by  formally  renouncing  all  claims  on  the 
Swedish  throne,  and  in  the  treaty  which  he  concluded  with 
Sweden  in  1660  he  had  been  joined  by  the  Emperor  and 
Elector  of  Brandenburg.  Denmark  and  Russia  had  been 
equally  ready  to  make  peace  at  the  same  time,  and  thus  the 
regency  had  carried  on  the  government  without  having  any 
war  to  provide  for.  Instead,  however,  of  peace  having  restored 
the  prosperity  of  the  kingdom,  it  had  only  served  to  make  the 
regents  indifferent  to  the  condition  of  the  materials  of  war ; 
and  when  the  young  king,  in  the  hope  that  his  fleet  would 
prove  more  than  a  match  for  the  Danes,  began  the  war  by 
a  sea  engagement  with  the  enemy  off  Oeland,  he  found  that 
his  ships  of  war  had  suffered  as  much  as  the  land-defences 
from  the  long-continued  neglect  of  his  regents.  The  Danes, 
under  their  great  admiral,  Niels  Juel,  and  supported  by  a 
Dutch  squadron,  beat  the  Swedish  fleet,  many  of  whose  ships 
were  burnt  or  sunk.  This  defeat  was  atoned  for  by  a  victory 
on  land,  gained  by  Charles  himself  in  1676,  over  the  Danes  on 
the  snow-covered  hills  around  the  town  of  Lund.  Success 
was  not  won  without  heavy  cost,  for  after  a  most  sanguinary 
fight,  continued  from  daybreak  till  night,  King  Charles, 
although  master  of  the  field,  found  that  more  than  half  his 
men  had  been  killed.  The  Danes,  who  had  suffered  fully  as 
much,  were  forced  to  retreat,  leaving  Lund  in  the  hands  of  the 
Swedes  ;  and  although  they  several  times  repeated  the  attempt, 
they  failed  in  recovering  the  province  of  Skaania,  which  was 
the  great  object  of  their  ambition. 

In  Germany  the  fortune  of  war  did  not  favour  the  Swedes, 
although  they  fought  gallantly  under  their  general,  Otto  Konigs- 
mark ;  and  Charles  XI.  was  glad  to  enter  into  negotiations  for 
taking  part  in  the  general  peace  which  France  was  urging  upon 
all  the  leading  powers  of  Europe,  and  which  was  signed  at  the 
palace  of  St.  Germains,  in  1679,  by  the  representatives  of  the 
respective  princes.  Sweden  recovered  the  whole  of  Pomerania, 
which  had  been  occupied  during  the  war  by  Austria  and  Bran- 


SWEDEN  FROM  1644  TO  1697.  299 

clenburg,  and  all  Swedish  and  Danish  conquests  were  mutually 
renounced,  while  as  a  further  proof  of  the  good-will  established 
between  the  Swedes  and  Danes,  Charles  XL  married  the 
Danish  princess  Ulrika  Eleanora,  whose  gentle  influence  and 
constant  endeavour  to  maintain  friendly  relations  between  the 
two  northern  kingdoms  made  her  subjects  regard  her  as  a 
second  "Fred-kulla" 

PART  III. 

THE    KING    BECOMES    ABSOLUTE. 

Charles  regains  the  Crown  Lands. — At  the  close  of  this  war 
Charles  XL  began  in  good  earnest  to  put  his  kingdom  in 
order.  In  the  stern  policy  which  he  pursued  towards  the 
higher  nobility,  he  was  mainly  influenced  by  the  counsels  of 
his  devoted  friend,  the  able  Johan  Gillenstjerna,  who,  together 
with  his  chief  supporters,  Klas  Fleming  and  Erik  Lindskold, 
made  a  thorough  investigation  of  every  department  of  the  Stale. 
Their  inquiries  brought  to  light  the  seemingly  hopeless  financial 
condition  of  the  monarch.  There  was  absolutely  no  money  at 
his  disposal,  while  nearly  all  the  crown  lands  had  been  given 
away  under  Queen  Christina  and  other  rulers.  In  this  state  of 
things  Charles  made  a  direct  appeal  to  the  National  Estates, 
and  with  their  consent  the  former  regents  and  councillors 
were  called  upon  in  1680  to  refund  five  million  silver  dollars, 
which,  according  to  the  charges  made  against  them,  had  been 
squandered,  or  otherwise  wrongfully  appropriated  by  them. 
They  further  granted  to  him  the  right  of  "  Reduction,"  as  it 
was  called,  by  which  was  meant  the  power  to  draw  back 
some  of  the  crown  lands  which  had  been  wantonly  alienated 
by  former  rulers.  This  measure,  which  circumstances  justified, 
and  which  at  first  was  restricted  to  estates  acquired  within  the 
previous  thirty  years,  and  then  only  to  a  fourth  part  of  the 
lands  in  question,  led  in  the  course  of  time  to  great  injustice, 
and  by  the  severity  with  which  it  was  enforced  reduced  the 
wealthiest  nobles  to  a  condition  of  poverty.  Thus  even  Count 
Marcus  de  la  Gardie,  who  was  the  husband  of  Charles' aunt,  the 
princess  Maria  Euphrosine,  was  deprived  of  all  he  owned,  and 


300  SCANDINA  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 

forced  to  dismiss  all  his  servants.  But  the  king,  who  was  a 
stern  man,  and  had  suffered  heavily  from  the  former  arrogance 
of  his  nobility,  showed  no  pity  to  the  sufferers,  and  never 
rested  till  he  had  thoroughly  crushed  their  power  and  reduced 
the  National  Estates  to  the  condition  of  a  mere  royal  chamber, 
summoned  only  to  approve  and  confirm  his  acts,  until  at  length 
they  of  their  own  accord  proclaimed  him,  in  a  diet  held  in  1693, 
to  be  an  absolute  sovereign  king,  "  who  had  the  power  and 
right  to  rule  his  kingdom  as  he  pleased." 

Charles  XI,  an  Absolute  King. — Like  his  father-in-law  in 
Denmark,  King  Charles  XI.  of  Sweden  became  an  absolute 
sovereign  by  a  most  important,  yet  bloodless  revolution,  which 
confirmed  all  the  ancient  rights  of  the  crown,  and  increased 
the  authority  of  the  sovereign  at  the  expense  of  the  hitherto 
all-powerful  nobles.  The  Swedish  king  used  his  power  for  the 
good  of  his  people  at  large.  He  spent  the  money  which  the 
regents  had  been  forced  to  refund  in  paying  off  some  of  the 
national  debt,  and  in  carrying  out  many  important  measures.  He 
put  the  army  and  fleet  on  a  good  footing,  granted  land  to  his 
soldiers,  who  in  time  of  peace  were  thus  converted  into  useful 
citizens  ;  and  he  took  stringent  measures  to  give  a  Swedish 
character  to  the  old  Danish  provinces  of  Skaania  and  Bleking, 
while  he  so  thoroughly  crushed  the  power  of  the  independent 
nobles  of  Livonia  and  the  Baltic  provinces  of  Sweden,  that 
many  of  these  old  families  preferred  exile  to  the  restrictions 
imposed  upon  them  by  the  Swedish  king. 

The  Swedish  Church  was  brought  under  a  new  code  of  laws 
in  this  reign,  and  although  King  Charles  was  himself  deficient 
in  cultivation,  he  showed  himself  anxious  to  encourage  learning, 
and  he  enjoined  upon  the  bishops  and  clergy  generally  to  see 
that  all  persons  in  the  parishes  under  their  control  were  taught 
to  read,  and  were  instructed  in  the  most  important  doc- 
trines of  the  Christian  faith.  Charles  XL,  with  all  his  harsh- 
ness, was  a  popular  king,  at  least  among  the  lower  orders  ;  for 
during  the  journeys  which  he  made  through  all  parts  of  his 
dominions  to  see  and  judge  for  himself  of  the  real  condition 
of  his  people,  he  entered  freely  into  their  amusements,  and 
listened  patiently  to  the  numerous  petitions  and  complaints 
laid  before  him.  The  last  years  of  his  reign  were  troubled 


SWEDEN  FROM  1644  TO  1697.  301 

by  an  almost  total  failure  of  the  crops  and  a  murrain  among 
the  cattle,  which  were  said  to  have  led  to  the  loss  of  nearly 
100,000  persons,  who  perished  from  hunger,  notwithstanding 
the  measures  which  the  king  caused  to  be  taken  for  their  relief. 
After  a  long  and  painful  illness,  Charles  XI.  died  in  1697  at 
the  age  of  forty-two,  having  survived  his  queen  only  a  few 
months,  and  leaving  three  children,  the  eldest  of  whom  suc- 
ceeded him,  and,  under  the  title  of  Charles  XII.  of  Sweden, 
gained  for  himself  a  greater  and  more  widely  spread  renowr 
than  any  attained  by  his  predecessors  on  the  Swedish  throne. 


CHAPTER  XXII. 

DENMARK    FROM    1648    TO    1730. 

Differences  between  Denmark  and  Sweden — Hard  terms  enforced  by  nobles 
on  Frederick  III.  of  Denmark — Queen  Sofia  Amalia's  jealousy  of  the 
Ulfelds — Conduct  and  success  of  Korfitz  Ulfeld — War  against  Sweden 
— Assault  of  Copenhagen  by  Charles  X. — Peace — Denmark's  mortifica- 
tion— Insults  of  Swedes — Defence  of  Copenhageners — Success  of  Swedes 
— Character  of  Frederick  III.  —  Help  from  the  Dutch — Treaty  and 
Peace  of  Copenhagen — The  different  orders  rise  against  the  nobles — 
Conduct  of  Bishop  Svane,  andofNansen,  chief  magistrate  of  Copenhagen 
— They  force  the  nobles  to  give  the  king  absolute  power — Monarchy 
changed  without  bloodshed — The  power  remaining  to  the  nobles — 
Colleges  of  State  appointed — The  Minister  GrifTenfeld — Ilis  acts — His 
character  and  fate — Cruelty  to  the  Ulfelds — Their  fate — Christian  V. 
first  hereditary  monarch — The  titles  of  Counts  and  Barons  first  used  in 
Denmark — Extravagance  of  Court — War  with  Sweden — Bad  fortune  of 
Danes — Troops  hired  out  for  pay — Olaus  Romer — His  many  useful 
inventions  — Bigotry  of  king  and  Court — Cruelty  to  the  peasant  classes 
— Christian  V.  is  succeeded  by  his  son  Frederick  IV.,  who  had  been 
neglected  by  his  father  and  not  trained  to  rule  —  Frederick  has  to  make 
peace  with  his  enemies — lias  to  contend  with  William  of  Orange — 
Holstein-Gottorp — The  type  quarrel — Subjugation  of  Duchy  by  Den- 
mark— War  in  the  North — Frederick's  merits  as  a  ruler — His  queen's 
extravagance  in  building  —  Public  calamities — Efforts  to  convert 
heathens — Colonies  in  Greenland  -Troops  hired  out  —  State  of  the 
peasantry  —  Number  of  schools — Great  preponderance  of  educated 
people  in  Denmark. 

PART    I. 
DENMARK     HUMBLED. 

Frederick  ///.,  1648-1670. — Ix  the  present  chapter  we  have 
to  consider  the  course  of  events  in  Denmark  during  the  latter 
half  of  the  seventeenth  and  the  earlier  part  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  while  the  immediate  successors  of  the  great  Gustavus 
Adolphus  of  Sweden  were  continuing  by  their  conquests  and 
personal  achievements  to  draw  the  attention  of  all  Europe  to 


DENMARK  FROM  1648  TO  1730.  303 

that  kingdom.  In  Denmark  the  same  period  of  time,  although 
marked  by  great  and  most  important  internal  changes,  presented 
little  or  nothing  to  excite  the  wonder  or  admiration  of  foreign 
nations.  Sweden  had  absorbed  the  interest  of  Europe,  and 
made  the  great  powers  value  her  alliance  in  proportion  as  Den- 
mark continued  to  fall  away  from  her  former  reputation ;  and 
when  her  able  king,  Christian  IV.,  died  in  1648,  baffled  by  the 
nobles  in  all  his  efforts  to  benefit  his  kingdom,  and  crushed 
under  the  weight  of  their  tyranny,  it  seemed  as  if  Denmark 
must  inevitably  sink  into  the  condition  of  an  oligarchy,  and 
that  independent  sovereignty  would  cease  to  have  even  a 
nominal  existence. 

Some  months  elapsed  after  the  death  of  Christian  IV.  before 
the  Council  would  elect  his  son  Frederick  to  the  throne,  but  to- 
wards the  close  of  the  year  1648  the  nobles  offered  to  proclaim 
him  king  of  Denmark  if  he  would  sign  the  charter  which  they 
submitted  to  him.  The  conditions  which  they  imposed  upon  the 
prince  were  harder  than  any  ever  before  enforced  in  Denmark, 
but  Frederick,  seeing  no  present  way  of  escape,  agreed  to  them, 
and  thus  found  himself  almost  a  slave  in  the  hands  of  his  own 
council,  without  whose  consent  he  could  not  leave  the  country, 
make  peace  or  war,  or  exercise  any  of  the  powers  of  a  king. 
While  Frederick  and  his  ambitious  queen,  Sofia  Amalia,  were 
thus  little  more  than  puppets  in  the  State,  the  Ulfelds  by 
their  wealth  and  power,  were  able  to  maintain  a  brilliant  posi- 
tion, and  to  eclipse  the  court  in  respect  to  the  magnificence  of 
their  entertainments  and  the  number  of  their  attendants.  These 
circumstances  helped  to  increase  the  jealousy  which  the  queen 
had  long  felt  for  the  beauty,  wit,  and  accomplishments  of 
Eleanore  Kristine  Ulfeld,  and  having  awakened  the  king's 
distrust  of  his  sister,  she  never  rested  till  she  had  destroyed 
the  happiness  of  this  unfortunate  couple.  Ulfeld's  conduct 
in  negotiating  the  peace  with  Holland,  by  which  the  Dutch 
were  allowed  to  evade  the  Sound  dues  on  the  payment  of  a 
sum  of  money,  and  his  administration  of  the  finances  under 
the  late  king,  were  made  grounds  of  accusation  against  him  ; 
and  feeling  how  little  chance  of  justice  he  had,  he  escaped 
from  Copenhagen  by  night  with  all  his  family,  and,  after  many 
wanderings  in  Holland  and  elsewhere,  went  to  Sweden,  where 


304  SCANDINA  VIAN  HISTOR  Y. 

he  was  received  with  every  mark  of  respect.  The  confidence 
placed  in  him  by  Queen  Christina  and  her  successor  led  him 
to  turn  traitor  to  his  own  country,  and  even  to  take  an  active 
share  in  the  war  against  Denmark. 

Fatal  War  with  Sweden. — This  war,  which  broke  out  in 
1657,  was  the  most  fatal  in  its  results  that  the  Danes  had  ever 
known,  for  after  enduring  the  disgrace  of  seeing  one  Danish 
province  and  island  after  the  other  overrun  by  the  Swedish 
troops  under  their  king,  Charles  X.,  and  even  Copenhagen  itself 
threatened  by  the  enemy,  Frederick  III.  had  to  sign  an  un- 
favourable treaty  of  peace,  drawn  up  by  his  foe,  Korfitz  Ul- 
feld,  by  which  he  gave  up  to  Sweden  Trondhjem  and  Aggerhus 
in  Norway,  the  old  Danish  provinces  of  Skaania,  Halland, 
and  Bleking,  besides  the  islands  Lesso,  Anholt,  Femern, 
and  Bornholm,  and  the  lands  of  the  Ditmarshes.  He  was 
also  obliged  to  resign  to  Sweden  half  of  the  Sound  dues, 
twelve  ships  of  war,  and  a  large  sum  of  money  in  return  for 
the  damage  done  by  the  Danes  to  the  fortresses  in  the  terri- 
tories of  the  Swedish  king's  brother-in-law,  Duke  Frederick  III. 
of  Holstein-Gottorp.  In  addition  to  these  very  severe  terms, 
Charles  X.  had  insisted  on  the  restitution  to  Korfitz  Ulfeld  of 
all  his  forfeited  lands  in  Denmark,  and  the  liberation  of  Duke 
Frederick  of  Holstein-Gottorp  from  all  future  obligations  of 
dependence  on  the  crown  of  Denmark.  Frederick  III.  had 
no  alternative  but  to  submit,  and  so  crushed  were  the  Danish 
armies,  that  when,  in  1658,  the  Swedish  king  broke  faith  with 
the  Danes,  and  appeared  before  the  walls  of  Copenhagen  with 
a  large  fleet,  the  troops  would  scarcely  exert  themselves  to 
defend  the  capital.  The  burgher  and  working-classes  showed, 
however,  much  more  spirit,  and  determined  at  the  cost  of  their 
lives  to  repel  the  invaders,  who  had  roused  their  fury  to  the 
highest  pitch  by  declaring  that  "  the  Swedes  intended  to  seize 
upon  the  kingdom  first,  and  give  their  reasons  afterwards,  for 
as  it  was  evident  Denmark's  end  had  come,  it  could  matter  little 
whether  the  king's  name  was  Frederick  or  Charles." 

The  success  of  the  Swedes  was  at  first  not  so  great  as  they 
had  anticipated,  but  their  superior  numbers  enabled  them  to 
seize  upon  the  castle  of  Cronborg  and  other  points  of  defence 
commanding  the  passage  of  the  Sound  ;  and  the  unhappy  city 


DENMARK  FROM  1648  TO  1730.  305 

would  have  had  to  surrender  for  want  of  provisions  had  not 
the  Dutch  admirals,  Opdam  and  De  Witte,  forced  their  way 
through  the  opposing  Swedish  fleet,  and  brought  food  and  help 
to  the  starving  citizens.  When  Charles  of  Sweden  found  his 
schemes  thus  thwarted,  he  determined  to  take  the  city  by 
assault,  and  on  the  night  of  the  loth  and  nth  February,  1659, 
his  generals,  Stenbock  and  Sparre,  led  a  storming  party  against 
the  fortifications  of  Copenhagen.  The  citizens,  who  had 
received  warning  of  the  intended  assault,  were,  however,  well 
prepared  to  defend  themselves,  and,  after  a  desperate  conflict, 
in  which  many  women  took  part  by  throwing  burning  brands 
and  boiling  tar  on  the  heads  of  the  assailants,  the  Swedes  had 
to  fall  back,  leaving  2,000  dead  and  wounded  in  the  hands  of 
the  Danes.  Relinquishing  his  attack  on  Copenhagen  for  the 
moment,  the  Swedish  king  turned  upon  the  small  islands  of 
Laaland,  Falster,  Moen,  and  Langeland,  which  were  made  to 
expiate  the  offence  of  having  supplied  the  city  with  provisions, 
and  were  overrun  and  subjected  to  all  the  horrors  of  invasion 
by  troops  to  whom  every  excess  and  license  were  allowed. 
King  Frederick  showed  great  fortitude  and  sagacity  in  the 
fearful  position  in  which  he  found  himself  placed,  and  while 
he  gave  his  subjects  an  example  of  personal  valour  and  great 
powers  of  endurance,  he  succeeded  by  his  earnest  representa- 
tions to  foreign  powers  in  securing  the  attention  and  intervention 
of  France,  England,  and  Holland.  A  conference  was  held  at 
the  Hague,  in  accordance  with  whose  decisions  a  Dutch  fleet, 
under  Admiral  cle  Ruyter,  was  sent  to  the  aid  of  the  oppressed 
Danes. 

By  the  help  of  the  Dutch  admiral  De  Ruyter  the  Danish  king 
was  enabled  to  send  an  army,  composed  of  Danes  and  allied 
troops,  to  the  relief  of  Fyen,  where  they  obtained  decided  advan- 
tages over  the  Swedes,  whose  commanders,  the  Count  Palatine  of 
Sulzbach  and  Count  Stenbock,  were  barely  able  to  make  their 
escape,  and  with  a  remnant  of  their  forces  to  join  King  Charles 
at  Korsor.  After  an  unsuccessful  invasion  of  Norway  by  the 
Swedish  king,  his  sudden  death  in  February  1660  brought  this 
disastrous  war  to  a  close,  and  King  Frederick  of  Denmark 
joyfully  concluded  a  peace  with  the  widowed  queen,  regent  of 
Sweden,  which  was  signed  at  Copenhagen  on  the  271)1  May, 

x 


306  SCANDINA  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 

1660.  The  terms  of  this  treaty  were  hard  upon  Denmark, 
which  only  recovered  Trondhjem  in  Norway  and  the  island  of 
Bornholm,  and  had  to  submit  to  the  unconditional  surrender  in 
perpetuity  of  Skaane,  Halland,  Bleking,  and  Bahus,  but  the 
kingdom  had  sunk  so  low  that  peace  had  to  be  bought  at  any 
price. 

PART  II. 

ABSOLUTE    POWER   ESTABLISHED. 

Frederick's  sudden  change  of  power. — It  would  be  impossible 
to  conceive  a  more  hopeless  position  than  the  one  in  which 
King  Frederick  III.  of  Denmark  found  himself  in  the  very  year 
when  his  cousin,  Charles  Stuart  of  England,  was  restored  to 
the  throne  of  his  forefathers.1  The  kingdom  was  laid  waste, 
the  treasury  was  empty,  and  the  monarchy  seemed  in  the  last 
stage  of  its  existence,  when  King  Frederick,  in  his  great  need, 
called  together  a  meeting  of  the  States  in  Copenhagen,  and 
laid  before  them  a  true  account  of  his  necessities.  The  nobles 
as  usual  tried  to  throw  off  all  responsibilities  from  themselves 
to  the  other  orders  of  the  State,  and  appealed  to  their  special 
privileges  of  exemption  from  taxes.  This  unworthy  conduct 
roused  the  anger  of  the  burgher  classes,  who  were  conscious 
that  it  was  owing  to  them  alone  that  the  kingdom  had  nut 
been  thoroughly  subjugated  by  the  Swedish  king  in  the  late 
war ;  and  when  the  nobles  refused  to  give  anything  to  defray 
the  expenses  of  the  siege,  the  town  council  of  Copenhagen, 
headed  by  their  burgomaster,  Hans  Nansen,  made  an  appeal 
to  the  king  for  the  curtailment  of  the  privileges  of  the  nobles. 
The  clergy,  under  the  guidance  of  the  learned  and  ambitious 
court-preacher,  Bishop  Svane,  seconded  their  proposals,  and 
joined  with  them  in  a  demand  for  an  inquiry  into  the  terms  on 
which  the  crown  fiefs  were  held,  with  the  further  view  of  having 
these  valuable  tenures  given  to  the  highest  bidder,  without 
respect  to  rank.  While  these  motions  were  being  made  within 
the  hall  of  assembly,  the  gates  of  the  city  were  closed  by  order 

1  Anne,  wife  of  lames  I.  of  Knglaml  am]  VI.  of  Scotland,  and  grand- 
mother of  King  Charles  II.,  was  the  aunt  of  the  Danish  king,  Frederick  III. 


DENMARK  FROM  1648  TO  1730.  307 

of  Hans  Nansen,  and  a  strong  civic  guard  drawn  around  the 
doors  of  the  building.  The  nobles  taken  by  surprise,  and 
finding  that  several  influential  members  of  their  own  body  had 
gone  over  to  the  side  of  the  burghers,  gave  up  their  resistance 
against  the  payment  of  the  taxes  demanded  of  them  ;  but  when 
Nansen  and  Svane  next  proposed  to  make  the  crown  hereditary 
in  the  descendants  of  the  king,  whether  male  or  female,  they 
opposed  the  motion  with  strong  and  bitter  expressions  of 
dissent.  This  important  measure  was,  however,  passed  by  the 
burghers  and  clergy  at  another  meeting  of  the  diet,  held  on 
the  8th  of  October,  and  when  the  nobles  refused  their  assent, 
they  were  informed  that  every  door  of  exit  was  held  by  troops, 
and  that  the  whole  of  the  city  guard  was  ready  to  rush  to 
arms  on  the  first  sound  of  the  alarm-bell.  Under  these  cir- 
cumstances the  nobles  found  themselves  forced  to  submit,  and 
on  the  1 8th  of  October,  1660,  Frederick  III.  received  the 
homage  of  the  several  orders  of  the  state  as  hereditary  king  of 
Denmark.  Thus  by  a  bloodless  and  sudden  revolution  of  the 
existing  principles  of  the  government,  one  of  the  most  strictly- 
bound  elective  monarchies  in  the  world  was  converted  by  the 
determination  of  a  few  men  into  the  most  absolute  hereditary 
state  in  Christendom.  Frederick  III.  was  a  silent,  cautious 
man,  who  knew  how  to  keep  his  own  counsel,  and  while  he 
appeared  to  be  wholly  ignorant  of,  and  indifferent  to,  all  that 
was  being  done  by  his  partisans,  Svane  and  Nansen,  he  had  in 
fact  co-operated  with  them  from  the  first  through  his  secretary, 
Gabel  ;  and  when  he  once  found  himself  master  of  his  king- 
dom, he  resented  the  slightest  attempt  to  circumscribe  his 
powers.  Gabel  had  had  the  address  to  propose  that;  the 
question  of  the  form  of  government  which  the  king  ought  to 
pursue  under  the  changed  condition  of  the  monarchy  should 
be  left  for  discussion  till  the  next  meeting  of  the  diet,  and 
when  this  proposal  had  been  agreed  to,  Frederick  took  care  to 
prevent  all  further  opposition  by  bribery  or  force.  Amongst 
other  means  he  adopted  that  of  commanding  the  University- 
representative,  Professor  Villum  Lange,  to  absent  himself  from 
the  assembly,  as  he  had  been  known  to  express  the  opinion 
that  Denmark,  like  all  other  civilized  monarchies,  ought  to 
have  a  written  constitution  of  its  own.  At  the  same  time  the 

X    2 


308  SCANDINA  VIA  N  IIISTOR  Y 

queen  and  court  party  laboured  assiduously  to  put  down  all 
opposition,  and  the  result  of  their  combined  efforts  was  to 
secure  a  large  number  of  signatures  among  the  nobles,  clergy, 
and  burghers  of  the  different  provinces,  to  a  charter  which 
proclaimed  the  absolute  independence  oi  the  hereditary  sovereignty 
settled  upon  the  king  and  his  heirs.  The  peasants  were  not 
consulted  in  regard  to  these  important  matters,  and  the  fre- 
quent appeals  which  they  made  to  the  king  for  a  mitigation  of 
the  heavy  burdens  and  forced  service  by  which  they  were  op- 
pressed, met  with  no  consideration  whatever  from  Frederick  III. 
The  power  of  the  nobles  over  this  class  had  not  been  interfered 
with  when  they  lost  many  of  their  long-established  prerogatives, 
and  so  completely  were  they  in  the  power  of  their  masters  that, 
in  accordance  with  the  Danish  game-laws,  the  lord  of  the 
manor  might  still  put  out  the  eyes  of  the  peasant  who  shot  a 
deer  on  his  lands,  or  might  hang  him  under  certain  conditions. 
In  Norway  the  peasantry  never  fell  into  so  low  a  condition  as  in 
Denmark,  although  after  the  final  union  of  the  two  kingdoms  in 
1537,  when  Danish  nobles  began  to  obtain  fiefs  and  secure  a 
footing  in  the  country,  the  subjects  of  this  ancient  monarchy 
lost  many  of  their  rights  under  the  careless  rule  of  their  Danish 
kings. 

New  offices  of  government. — With  Frederick  II I. 's  acquisi- 
tion of  independent  power  a  new  system  of  government  was 
introduced  into  Denmark,  and  the  Council  of  State  gave  place 
to  six  "  colleges  "  or  offices  for  the  transaction  of  home  and 
foreign  affairs.  These  changes  and  all  the  improvements 
made  in  the  administration  of  the  universities  and  of  military 
and  naval  affairs,  finance,  &c.,  were  mainly  due  to  the  able 
counsels  of  the  king's  secretary,  Pcder  Schumacher  (Count 
GrifTenfeld),  a  man  of  low  origin,  who  by  his  talents  raised 
himself  to  the  place  of  the  most  powerful  minister  of  the  crown, 
both  under  Frederick  and  his  son,  Christian  V.  After  being 
created  a  count  of  the  empire,  and  receiving  every  mark  of 
confidence  and  distinction  in  the  power  of  the  king  to  bestow 
upon  him,  the  jealousy  of  his  many  enemies  at  court  brought 
about  his  ruin.  Being  accused  of  treason,  he  was  condemned 
to  death,  but  the  sentence  was  commuted  at  the  scaffold  to 
close  imprisonment  for  life ;  and  for  eighteen  years  Count 


DENMARK  FROM  1648  TO  1730.  309 

Griffenfeld  was  kept  in  confinement,  and  only  liberated  the 
year  before  his  death,  in  1699 ;  yet  Denmark  never  had  a 
greater  minister,  or  one  who  met  with  a  more  unworthy  return 
for  all  the  good  he  did  his  country. 

Frederick  may  be  said  to  have  used  the  extraordinary  powers 
of  which  he  had  so  unexpectedly  become  possessed  with  mode- 
ration. The  few  acts  of  cruelty  which  can  be  laid  to  his  charge 
seem  moreover  to  have  been  due  to  the  evil  influence  of  his 
hard-hearted,  vindictive  queen,  Sophia  Amalia  of  Hesse  Cassel. 
It  was  through  her  jealousy  and  hatred  that  Frederick's  half- 
sister,  Eleanore  Kristine  Ulfeld,  was  brought  to  trial  on  various 
false  and  absurd  charges,  and  shut  up  in  the  Blaataarn  in 
Copenhagen,  where  she  was  kept  for  twenty-two  years  a  close 
prisoner,  and  left  to  endure  every  form  of  privation  and  in- 
dignity that  the  queen  could  heap  upon  her.  From  this  cruel 
fate  she  was  only  liberated  on  the  death  of  her  enemy  in  1685, 
when  she  was  permitted  by  her  nephew,  Christian  V.,  to  end 
her  days  in  peace  on  her  own  estates  in  Lolland.  This  un- 
happy lady  had  been  betrayed  and  given  up,  in  the  year  1663, 
to  the  Danish  queen  by  Charles  II.  while  she  was  living  in 
England,  whither  she  had  come  to  demand  payment  from 
Charles  of  a  large  sum  of  money  which  her  husband,  Korfitz 
Ulfeld,  when  Danish  envoy  at  the  Hague,  had  lent  him  during 
his  exile.  The  year  after  she  had  been  thus  shamefully  be- 
trayed by  her  father's  great-nephew,  the  ungenerous  king  of 
England,  Ulfeld  met  his  death  by  the  upsetting  of  a  boat  in 
which  he  was  attempting  to  cross  the  Rhine  while  wandering 
with  his  sons  as  a  fugitive  from  place  to  place  in  Germany. 
He  was  buried  under  a  tree  at  the  spot  where  his  body  was 
recovered  at  Neuenburg  in  Baden,  and  from  that  time  forth 
his  outlawed  sons  and  descendants  were  no  more  heard  of  in 
the  two  Scandinavian  lands,  where  Korfitz  Ulfeld  had  earned 
for  himself — whether  rightly  or  wrongly  it  is  not  possible  now 
to  determine — the  title  of  a  double  traitor  to  both  countries. 


3 10  SCANDINA  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 

PART  III. 
THE    ORIGIN     OF  TITLES. 

Christian  K,  1670-1699. — Christian  V.,  who  succeeded  his 
father,  Frederick  III.,  in  1670,  was  the  first  Danish  king  who 
had  ever  mounted  the  throne  without  having  to  agree  to  some 
compact  or  other,  or  having  to  accept  terms  from  those  who 
had  elected  him.  Christian  had  no  one  to  thank  for  his  crown, 
which  came  to  him  by  heritage,  and  his  first  thought  after  his 
accession  seemed  to  be  to  create  a  brilliant  court  after  the 
fashion  of  that  of  le  Grand  Monarquc,  Louis  XIV.  of  France. 
Many  of  the  heads  of  the  noblest  families  in  Denmark  had 
withdrawn  themselves  from  the  capital,  where  they  no  longer 
exercised  the  influence  which  they  had  enjoyed  in  former 
times,  and  they  endeavoured  to  show  their  indifference  to  the 
court  by  remaining  on  their  own  lands.  The  young  king 
therefore  resolved  to  create  a  new  order  of  nobility,  more 
brilliant  and  distinguished  than  the  old.  Previous  to  this  time 
hereditary  titles  were  unknown  among  the  Danish  nobility, 
but  Christian  V.,  who  was  thoroughly  German  in  all  his  feel- 
ings, now  by  one  absolute  decree  established  all  the  titles  and 
grades  of  rank  recognized  among  the  higher  classes  of  Ger- 
many. And  soon  his  court  was  filled  with  counts  and  barons, 
who,  on  the  payment  of  certain  fees,  had  obtained  with  the 
newly  adopted  rank  many  seignorial  rights  which  had  never 
been  exercised  by  the  older  nobles  of  Denmark.  The  latter 
now  saw  themselves  supplanted  at  court  and  in  the  service 
of  the  state  by  a  band  of  German  adventurers,  who  had  pro- 
cured their  dignity  by  money  and  not  birth.  All  the  cere- 
monials and  rigid  etiquette  of  Versailles  were  adopted  by  the 
Danish  king,  who,  to  complete  his  new  system  of  courtly 
favour,  established  two  orders  of  knighthood,  known  as  the 
Dannebrog  and  the  Elephant,  in  the  former  of  which  a  white 
riband,  and  in  the  latter  a  blue  one  was  used. 

The  expenses  of  the  court  rose  in  tin's  reign  far  above  any 
hitherto  known  in  Denmark,  and  it  was  the  difficulty  of  find- 
ing money  to  gratify  his  love  of  display,  and  the  unpalatable 
adxice  which  Griffenfeld  gave  Christian  in  regard  to  the  ne- 


DENMARK  FROM  1648  TO  1730.  311 

cessity  for  retrenchment,  that  first  brought  that  minister  into 
disfavour  with  his  sovereign.  His  counsel  that  Christian 
should  remain  neutral  in  the  war  which  had  broken  out  in 
1672,  between  France  and  Holland,  still  more  irritated  the 
young  king,  who,  thirsting  for  distinction,  rushed  into  the 
conflict  and  took  up  arms  with  the  Emperor  and  Elector  of 
Brandenburg  against  Louis  XIV.  By  this  alliance  Denmark 
was  brought  into  hostilities  with  Sweden,  which  was  the  staunch 
ally  of  France,  and  soon  the  province  of  Skaania  became  the 
scene  of  war.  The  two  young  northern  kings,  Christian  of 
Denmark  and  Charles  XI.  of  Sweden,  commanded  in  person 
when  their  armies  met  in  a  fierce  engagement  at  Lund  in  1676, 
and  both  gave  repeated  proofs  of  personal  valour ;  but 
although  Christian  kept  his  15,000  Danes  in  the  field  against 
the  25,000  Swedes  of  his  rival's  army,  he  was  unable  to  secure 
a  footing  in  the  country.  Success  had  indeed  generally  attended 
the  Danish  fleet  under  their  renowned  admiral,  Niels-Juel ;  but 
as  Griffenfeld  had  foreseen,  Denmark  could  effect  nothing 
against  the  allies  of  France  ;  and  in  1679,  when  Louis  XIV. 
had  concluded  secret  treaties  with  the  emperor  and  with  Hol- 
land and  Brandenburg,  there  was  no  alternative  for  Christian 
but  to  accede  to  the  peace  proposed  by  the  French  king,  and 
by  which  all  that  had  been  taken  by  Denmark  from  Sweden 
had  to  be  restored  to  the  latter  power. 

Denmark  gained  nothing  by  this  costly  war  but  good  training 
for  her  fleet  and  her  army,  both  of  which  had  been  brought 
into  a  flourishing  condition  under  Christian.  As  soon  as  peace 
was  concluded  with  France,  the  finance  minister,  Sigfrid  von 
Pless,  hired  some  of  the  troops  to  the  English  king  to,  be  used 
against  the  Irish,  and  others  to  the  emperor  for  his  wars  against 
the  Turks.  But  this  short-sighted  policy,  while  it  drained  the 
country  of  some  of  her  best  men — for  only  a  small  number 
returned  to  their  homes — brought  meagre  supplies  to  the  ex- 
hausted finances;  and  on  the  death  of  the  king  in  1699,  the 
State  was  found  to  be  hampered  with  a  debt  of  more  than  one 
million  rix  dollars,  notwithstanding  the  flourishing  condition  of 
trade.  During  this  reign  the  eminent  Danish  astronomer,  Ole 
(Olaus)  Romer,  did  good  service  to  his  country  by  the  improve- 
ments which  he  was  the  means  of  bringing  about  in  reforming 


312  SCANDINA  VIAN  IHSTOR  Y. 

the  coinage,  regulating  the  weights  and  measures,  repairing  the 
public  roads,  and  setting  up  mile-posts  and  sign-posts.  While 
holding  the  place  of  chief  of  the  police  department  of  Copen- 
hagen, he  also  organised  a  good  system  of  lighting  the  streets, 
established  an  efficient  night-watch  and  a  fire-brigade,  and  gave 
plans  for  the  construction  of  better  fire-engines  than  any  that 
had  yet  been  in  use.  He  was  at  a  later  period  named  Chan- 
cellor of  the  Exchequer  and  an  assessor  of  the  Supreme  Court 
of  Justice,  and  was  engaged  for  seven  years  in  compiling  a 
great  land-book,  in  which  all  land  was  taxed  in  accordance 
with  a  certain  mode  of  measurement  known  by  the  name  of 
the  Hartkorn  Standard.  This  land-Dook  was  made  the  basis  for 
the  code  of  laws  and  the  mode  of  assessing  taxes  established 
by  Christian  V.  in  1684. 

The  bigotry  of  the  king  and  of  the  court  clergy  was  the 
means  of  depriving  Denmark  of  the  labours  of  many  thousands 
of  Huguenots,  who,  after  the  revocation  of  the  edict  of  Nantes 
in  1685,  petitioned  for  leave  to  settle  in  the  country.  This  was 
sternly  refused,  and  hence  these  industrious  men  carried  their 
skill  to  other  lands,  where  no  obstacles  existed  to  the  pro- 
fession of  the  doctrines  of  Calvin.  The  condition  of  the 
peasants  had  Deen  made  so  much  worse  by  the  creation  of 
numerous  countships  and  baronies,  which  gave  the  holders  full 
power  over  the  serfs  upon  their  lands,  that  many  of  the  younger 
men  left  the  country.  At  length  a  law  was  passed  decreeing  that 
all  Bonder  who  did  not  marry  and  remain  settled  on  the  estate 
to  which  they  belonged  should  be  taken  as  soldiers,  while  any 
peasant  who  left  his  master's  service  without  leave  might  be 
sent  to  the  hulks  to  work  in  irons  for  a  year.  The  consequence 
of  these  cruel  measures  was  that  the  poor  fell  into  a  state  of 
dependence,  scarcely  better  than  slavery,  while  the  land  was 
only  half-cultivated  and  the  owners  became  in  time  im- 
poverished. 

PART  IV. 

"THE     TYPE-QUARREL." 

Frederick  IV.,  1699-1730. — On  the  death  of  Christian  V.  in 
1699,  after  a  reign  of  nearly  thirty  years,  his  eldest  son  was 


DENMARK  FROM  1648  TO  1730.  313 

proclaimed  king  under  the  title  of  Frederick  IV.  This  prince, 
who  in  the  latter  part  of  his  life  showed  great  capacity  for 
ruling,  and  considerable  practical  knowledge  of  all  the  details 
of  government,  had  been  so  neglected  by  his  father  in  his 
childhood  and  youth,  that  he  had  not  even  been  taught  to 
spell  or  to  express  himself  correctly,  and  had  never  been 'per- 
mitted to  take  any  part  in  public  affairs  until  within  a  few 
days  of  Christian's  death,  when  the  old  king,  either  because 
he  was  too  feeble  to  resist,  or  because  he  repented  of  his 
unworthy  conduct  to  his  son,  summoned  him  for  the  first  time 
to  take  his  place  at  the  council-board.  Frederick  was  then 
more  than  twenty-eight  years  of  age,  and  his  first  measure  after 
his  coronation  was  to  plunge  the  kingdom  into  an  unnecessary 
war  with  Sweden  by  seizing  upon  the  territories  of  Duke 
Frederick  IV.  of  Gottorp,  the  near  kinsman  and  close  ally  of 
the  young  Swedish  king,  Charles  XII.  The  Danish  king  had 
probably  trusted  to  the  youth  and  inexperience  of  his  cousin, 
Charles  XII.,  but  in  this  expectation  he  was  soon  undeceived, 
for  although  the  young  Swedish  king  was  scarcely  eighteen  at 
the  time,  and  had  previously  seemed  to  be  wholly  taken  up  with 
bear-hunting  and  other  daring  pursuits  in  which  he  took  special 
delight,  he,  on  the  first  news  of  Frederick's  invasion  of  Gottorp, 
collected  troops  and  ships,  made  a  rapid  descent  on  Sjoelland, 
and  in  person  advanced  to  the  assault  of  Copenhagen.  These 
prompt  and  unexpected  measures  had  the  effect  of  inducing 
King  Frederick  to  make  a  hasty  peace  with  his  namesake 
in  Holstein-Gottorp,  to  whom  he  assured  the  independent 
sovereignty  of  his  duchy  and  the  payment  of  a  large  sum  of 
money  for  the  expenses  of  the  war.  In  this  short  and  in- 
glorious war,  the  Danish  king  had  had  to  contend  with  a 
far  more  powerful  foe  than  his  still  untried  cousin.  This 
was  William  of  Orange,  who,  as-  king  of  England  and  Stadt- 
holder  of  Holland,  exerted  an  overwhelming  weight  on  the 
politics  of  Europe  at  this  time,  and  who  had  sent  a  large 
fleet  of  English  and  Dutch  ships  into  the  Baltic  to  co-operate 
with  his  ally,  the  Swedish  king.  King  William's  threats  of 
bombarding  Copenhagen,  unless  Frederick  IV.  at  once  con- 
cluded a  peace  with  Charles  XI I. ,  had  therefore  had  a  great 
share  in  bringing  hostilities  to  a  sudden  close. 


314  SC AND  IN  A  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 

Hohtein-Gottorp.—lhz  death  of  Duke  Frederick  IV.  of 
Gottorp,  in  1702,  was  the  means  of  exciting  new  causes  of  dif- 
ference between  the  Danish  crown  and  the  duchy.  This  was 
mainly  due  to  the  ambition  and  craft  of  Count  Gortz,  one 
of  the  members  of  the  council  of  regency,  who,  together  with 
the  widowed  duchess,  Hedvig  Sofia,  sister  of  Charles  XII., 
ruled  the  state  during  the  minority  of  the  young  Duke  Carl 
Frederick.  This  man,  whose  aim  was  to  separate  the  pro- 
vince entirely  from  Denmark,  and  who  afterwards,  as  prime 
minister  to  Charles  XII.  of  Sweden,  did  all  in  his  power  to 
bring  about  the  ruin  of  the  Danish  monarchy,  had  roused 
the  anger  of  Frederick  by  causing  certain  public  notices, 
which  referred  to  the  joint  government  of  the  king  and  duke, 
to  be  issued  in  the  name  of  the  latter  only.  He  had  still 
more  offended  the  king  by  having  the  duke's  name  printed 
in  the  same  type  as  his  own,  instead  of  letting  the  royal 
signature,  as  was  usual  in  such  cases,  be  struck  off  in 
larger  letters.  This  frivolous  cause  of  strife,  known  as  the 
"  type-quarrel"  gave  rise  to  many  other  differences,  and  led  in 
the  course  of  time  to  open  war  between  the  parties,  which 
ended,  after  the  peace  between  Sweden  and  Denmark  in  1721, 
in  the  entire  subjugation  of  the  duchy  of  Holstein-Gottorp, 
which,  in  accordance  with  a  royal  decree  of  that  year,  was 
again  re-united  to  the  Danish  crown-lands,  after  having  been 
separated  from  them  since  the  year  1386,  when  it  was  given 
by  the  regent,  Queen  Margaret,  to  Count  Gerhard  VI.  of 
Holstein  as  an  hereditary  fief. 

Internal  state  of  Denmark. — The  war  in  which  Denmark 
was  embroiled  in  common  with  the  other  northern  powers 
between  1709  and  1720  belongs  so  much  more  to  the  history 
of  Charles  XII.  of  Sweden,  who  was  the  most  prominent 
character  in  all  the  scenes  of  that  stirring  period,  than  to  that 
of  any  other  prince  who  took  part  in  it,  that  it  will  be  un- 
necessary here  to  enter  into  any  details  in  regard  to  it.  We 
will  therefore  turn  at  once  to  the  events  which  belong  to  the 
internal  rule  of  Frederick  IV.  of  Denmark,  whose  economy, 
industry,  common  sense,  and  moral  rectitude  formed  a  striking 
contrast  to  the  characteristics  by  which  his  father  had  been 
distinguished.  By  his  careful  reduction  of  all  unnecessary 


DENMARK  FROM  1648  TO  1730.  315 

• 

expenses  in  his  court  and  in  the  various  departments  of  the 
government,  Frederick  IV.  succeeded  in  reducing  to  a  very 
small  sum  the  national  debt  left  to  him  by  Christian  V.,  notwith- 
standing the  cost  of  the  long  war  and  the  outlay  required  for 
the  erection  of  the  palaces  of  Fredericksberg  and  Fredensborg 
and  other  public  buildings,  which  the  foolishly  extravagant 
tastes  of  his  queen,  Louisa  of  Mecklenburg,  had  led  him  to 
incur.  The  reign  of  Frederick  was  visited  by  several  public 
calamities,  which  called  for  the  prompt  and  liberal  aid  of  the 
state.  In  1710  a  frightful  pestilence  cut  off  25,000  people  in 
Copenhagen  alone,  and  in  1728,  a  destructive  fire  laid  waste 
two-thirds  of  the  city,  which  cost  the  lives  of  many  of  the 
citizens  and  reduced  to  ashes  many  of  the  principal  buildings, 
amongst  others  the  magnificent  University  Library,  with  most 
of  its  rich  stores  of  oriental  manuscripts  and  other  valuable 
works,  while  in  1717  an  inundation  had  destroyed  large  tracts 
of  the  rich  pasture  lands  of  the  Ditmarshers.  In  all  these 
national  misfortunes  Frederick  evinced  the  greatest  liberality 
and  sympathy  towards  the  sufferers,  and  took  means  to  relieve 
their  distress  to  the  utmost  of  his  power.  This  king  was  the 
first  sovereign  who  endeavoured  to  extend  a  knowledge  of  the 
Gospel  to  his  heathen  colonial  subjects  by  organizing  missions 
for  their  conversion  and  instruction.  In  1705  the  missionary 
Ziegenbalg  was  sent  by  him  to  the  Danish  trading  station  at 
Tranquebar  in  India  to  teach  the  Hindoos,  and  in  1721,  as  we 
have  seen  in  Chapter  VI.,  Hans  Egede  with  his  wife  went  to 
Greenland  to  preach  to  the  natives,  who,  since  the  Black 
Death  in  1350,  had  been  apparently  forgotten  by  the  mother- 
country.  Frederick  caused  the  town  of  Godthaab  to  be 
founded  in  1721,  and  a  Greenland  trading  company  to  be  in- 
corporated in  1723;  and  thus  this  long-neglected  colony  was 
reopened  to  the  rest  of  the  world. 

This  king's  attention  to  his  fleet  was  well  repaid  by  the  able 
body  of  seamen  which  the  Danish  navy  possessed  at  the  close 
of  his  reign;  while  the  gallant  deeds  of  his  brave  admiral, 
Peder  Vessel,  better  known  as  "  Tordenskjold  (Thundershield), 
recall  by  their  daring,  success,  and  extraordinary  character,  the 
memory  of  those  northern  sea-kings  of  old,  whose  name  like 
his  own  was  a  shield  to  their  friends  and  a  thunderbolt  to  their 


316  SCAA'DINA  VIAN  HISTOR  Y. 

foes.  In  accordance  with  the  unwise  policy  of  the  poorer 
rulers  of  those  times,  Frederick  let  out  his  armies  to  other 
princes  who  needed  and  could  afford  to  pay  for  foreign 
auxiliaries.  Thus  12,000  Danes  were  lent  to  England  for  ten 
years  to  fight  in  the  Spanish  War  of  Succession,  while  8,000 
swelled  the  ranks  of  the  Imperialists  at  the  same  time,  and 
the  money  which  they  too  often  purchased  with  their  lives  was 
used  by  the  king  to  pay  off  the  arrears  of  an  old  debt  due  to 
Holland. 

Frederick  IV.  tried  to  improve  the  condition  of  the  peasantry 
by  abolishing  serfdom,  but  his  measures  in  their  favour  lost 
much  of  the  benefit  they  might  otherwise  have  afforded  by  the 
organization  of  a  country  militia,  which  the  great  landowners 
were  called  upon  to  maintain  at  their  own  expense,  and  which 
they  filled  up  by  sending  into  the  ranks  any  of  their  peasants 
whom  they  wished  to  get  rid  of  or  punish  for  insubordina- 
tion. His  measures  for  the  education  of  the  poorer  classes 
were  more  immediately  successful,  and  at  Frederick's  death,  in 
1730,  free  schools  had  been  so  generally  opened  in  all  parts  of 
his  kingdom,  that  no  sovereign  of  those  times  numbered  so 
large  a  proportion  of  educated  persons  amongst  his  subjects  as 
the  Danish  king. 


CHAPTER  XXI IL 

DENMARK    FROM    1730    TO    1839. 

Frederick  IV.  succeeded  by  Christian  VI.,  who  encourages  Germans — The 
Queen  despises  everything  Danish — Her  mania  for  building  and  pull- 
ing down— Crown  Prince  discouraged  in  learning  Danish — Bigotry  of 
Court — Tyranny  in  Religion — Reproofs  and  penalties  and  stocks 
awarded  to  those  who  neglected  services  of  the  Church — Orders  sent  to 
Iceland  to  regulate  domestic  life — Hypocrisy — Frederick  V.  and  English 
Queen  undo  all  that  his  father  had  done — Great  reaction — French 
manners  followed — King's  weakness — Good  ministers — Their  services — - 
The  Gottorp  princes — Russian  emperor — His  hatred  to  Denmark — His 
threats — Danger  of  invasion — His  murder  averts  the  peril — -Peace  with 
Russia — Christian  VII.  and  his  Queen  Caroline  Matilda  of  England 
— King's  weakness — His  acts — His  favourites — Struensee  and  Brandt—- 
Their power,  influence,  acts — Their  fate — Queen's  disgrace — Removal 
from  Copenhagen— Her  early  death — The  execution  of  the  ministers — 
The  power  of  Queen  Dowager  and  her  son — The  Guldberg  Ministry — 
Prince  Frederick  acts  as  Regent—  Guldberg's  party  dismissed — Bern- 
storf's  influence  and  acts — Slave  trade  abolished — Armed  neutrality — 
Difficulties  with  England — Nelson's  appearance — Battle — His  admira- 
tion of  Danish  valour — Danish  heroes — Peace  with  England — Some 
years  of  quiet — Denmark  trading  agent  for  other  countries — English 
squadron  under  Gambier  seizes  on  Danish  fleet — Danes  nearly  crushed 
—  Gustavus  IV.  of  Sweden  attacks  Norway — Frederick  VI.  reigns  alone 
from  1808  on  the  death  of  his  father — Critical  position — Forced  into 
alliance  with  Napoleon — French  army  under  Bernadotte  sent  to  Jutland 
— The  mutinies  of  troops — Bernadotte  withdraws  without  striking  a 
blow — -Paper  money  issued — Merchants  ruined — -Frederick's  fickle 
policy — Norway  given  to  Sweden — England  takes  Heligoland — King 
disappointed  in  not  securing  Swedish  throne,  which  is  obtained  by 
Bernadotte — Gradual  improvement  of  country — Legislative  Chambers 
opened — King  anxious  to  drawback  from  further  political  concessions — 
Laws  against  the  press — Great  turmoil — His  death. 

PART  I. 
A     PERIOD     OF     RESTRAINT. 

Christian    VI.,   1730-1746. — THE  reign  of  Christian  VI.  of 
Denmark,  who  succeeded  his  father,  Frederick  IV.,  in  1730, 


3 1 8  SCANDINA  VI AN  HIS  TOR  Y. 

is  only  remarkable  for  its  peculiarly  un-Danish  and  strong 
German  character.  The  queen,  Sophia  Magdalena  of  Kulm 
bach-Bayreuth,  exerted  her  great  influence  over  the  king  in 
filling  all  offices  of  trust  with  Germans,  and  in  banishing  from 
the  court  the  language  and  usages  of  the  country ;  and  in  her 
dislike  for  everything  Danish,  she  even  tried  to  prevent  the 
crown  prince  being  taught  to  understand  his  native  tongue. 
She  had  a  fatal  mania  for  building,  which  led  her  to  pull  down 
one  palace  only  to  erect  another  on  some  site  that  pleased  her 
better.  Thus  she  demolished  the  noble  castle  of  Axelhus  in 
Copenhagen,  which  Frederick  IV.  had  restored  and  enlarged 
at  great  expense,  and  substituted  for  it  the  enormous  building 
known  as  Christiansborg,  which  cost  near  3,000,000  rix  dollars 
and  was  seven  years  in  building.  To  gratify  a  whim  of  hers. 
a  beautiful  hunting  palace  was  erected  at  Hirschholm  on  a 
piece  of  swampy  land,  where  the  foundations  soon  gave  way, 
and  the  house  had  to  be  pulled  down.  \Yhile  the  queen  was 
thus  indulging  her  expensive  hobby,  the  king  was  introducing  a 
system  of  bigotry  and  pietism  into  the  country  to  which  Den- 
mark had  hitherto  been  an  entire  stranger,  and  which  soon 
brought  about  the  most  deplorable  state  of  hypocrisy  and 
intolerance.  A  General  Church  Inspection  College  was  esta- 
blished in  1737,  which  may  be  regarded  as  a  Protestant  form  of 
the  Court  of  Inquisition,  for  the  duties  of  its  directors  con- 
sisted in  taking  cognizance  of  the  doctrines  and  lives  of  all 
preachers  and  teachers  in  the  kingdom,  watching  over  the 
proper  performance  of  church  services,  and  inspecting  all 
works  that  passed  through  the  Danish  press.  Heavy  penalties 
were  inflicted,  and  severe  reproofs  were  publicly  given  from 
the  pulpits  in  accordance  with  the  decisions  of  this  inquisi- 
torial court,  which  moreover  punished  neglect  of  attendance  at 
church  by  money  fines,  and  in  default  of  payment  with  the  long 
disused  penalty  of  standing  in  the  stocks,  which  were  for  that 
purpose  erected  before  every  church  door.  All  public  amuse- 
ments were  forbidden,  together  with  recreations  that  had 
hitherto  been  thought  harmless,  as  riding  or  driving  on  a 
Sunday;  and  all  the  old  national  games  and  festivities  were 
put  down  as  "  things  offensive  to  God  and  injurious  to  the 
working  man."  A  royal  decree  was  drawn  up  for  the  main- 


DENMARK  FROM  1730  TO  1839. 


tenance  of  household  piety  and  domestic  virtue  in  Iceland,  in 
which  the  islanders  were  warned  to  abstain  from  reading  idle 
stories,  and  so-called  Sagas,  which  were  not  "seemly  for  a 
Christian  soul's  entertainment,  and  were  a  cause  of  offence  to 
the  Holy  Ghost."  The  result  of  these  coercive  measures  was 
to  create  great  dissensions  in  churches  and  families,  and  to 
form  a  party  who,  in  spite  of  all  restrictions,  showed  utter  in- 
difference to  religion,  and  tried  by  ridicule  to  bring  the  pietists 
into  discredit. 

Frederick  V.,  1746-1766.  French  manners. — When,  by  the 
death  of  Christian  VI.  in  1746,  his  eldest  son,  Frederick  V., 
ascended  the  throne,  all  the  ordinances  of  the  former  reign 
were  annulled,  and  brilliancy  and  liberty  were  restored  to  the 
court  under  the  direction  of  the  good-humoured  sociable  king. 
and  his  lovely  young  queen,  Louisa,  daughter  of  George  II.  of 
England.  The  royal  couple,  by  their  youth,  beauty  and  affa- 
bility, won  the  hearts  of  the  people,  and  the  nation  at  large 
rejoiced  publicly  at  their  release  from  the  religious  thraldom  in 
which  the  late  king  had  bound  them.  At  first  the  reaction 
•  seemed  harmless  and  even  beneficial,  and  as  long  as  Queen 
Louisa  lived,  the  amusements  of  the  court  were  kept  within  the 
bounds  of  moderation,  but  after  her  death  in  1751,  and  when 
another  queen,  Juliana  Maria  of  Brunswick,  had  taken  her 
place,  greater  luxury  began  to  prevail,  and  in  the  attempt  to 
imitate  the  sumptuous  habits  of  the  French,  the  Danish  royal 
family  were  led  to  incur  expenses  for  which  the  ordinary  re- 
sources of  the  crown  were  quite  inadequate.  Frederick  him- 
self towards  the  close  of  his  life  fell  into  habits  of  drinking, 
which,  coupled  with  his  naturally  easy  good  nature,  often  made 
him  a  tool  in  the  hands  of  unworthy  favourites.  But  although 
he  was  not  himself  an  active  or  efficient  ruler,  he  had  the  good 
fortune  to  secure  able  ministers,  amongst  whom  the  most  dis- 
tinguished were  Counts  Schimmelmann  and  Bernstorf.  To  the 
latter  Denmark  owes  a  large  debt  of  gratitude,  for  to  him  are 
mainly  due  all  the  great  improvements  in  manufactures,  trade, 
and  agriculture  which  distinguish  this  reign.  He  encouraged 
learning,  established  societies  for  the  promotion  of  science, 
invited  learned  teachers,  as  Mallet  and  Schlegel,  into  the 
country ;  was  the  means  of  sending  Niebuhr  to  Arabia  to 


320  SCANDLVA  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 

make  archaeological  researches ;  co-operated  with  the  Nor- 
wegian Hoi  berg,  the  greatest  dramatic  writer  of  his  time,  in 
the  reorganization  of  the  noble  academy  of  Soro  near  Copen- 
hagen ;  founded  hospitals  in  the  chief  towns  of  the  kingdom, 
and  in  many  other  ways  used  his  great  influence  in  promoting 
the  general  education  and  improved  cultivation  of  the  people. 
This  reign  was  peaceful,  although  more  than  once  war  seemed 
imminent,  owing  to  the  new  influence  acquired  by  Denmark's 
old  enemies,  the  Gottorp  princes,  through  the  accession  of 
Charles  Peter  Ulrik,  the  head  of  their  house,  to  the  throne  of 
Russia,  on  the  death  of  his  mother's  sister,  the  Empress  Eliza- 
beth. This  prince,  who  assumed  the  title  of  Peter  III.,  bore 
strong  feelings  of  hatred  to  Denmark  on  account  of  the  losses 
inflicted  upon  his  family  by  the  incorporation  of  the  Slesvig 
territories  with  the  Danish  crown  lands,  and  in  1762  he  sent 
an  army  into  Mecklenburg,  with  orders  to  advance  on  the 
duchies,  and  openly  announced  his  intention  of  driving  the 
Danish  royal  family  out  of  Europe,  and  forcing  them  to  take 
refuge  in  their  East  Indian  settlement  at  Tranquebar.  The 
danger  was  threatening,  and  the  Danes  were  in  daily  expecta- 
tion of  hearing  that  the  fleet,  which  had  been  equipped  in 
haste  to  defend  the  coasts,  would  come  into  conflict  with  the 
Russian  squadron  lying  in  wait  for  it  in  the  Baltic,  when 
their  fears  of  coming  war  were  suddenly  set  at  rest  by  the 
news  of  the  murder  of .  the  emperor,  Peter  III.,  on  the  i-jth  of 
July,  1762.  The  empress,  Catherine  II.,  who  succeeded  her 
husband,  the  murdered  prince,  and  was  known  to  have  been 
averse  to  the  war,  at  once  concluded  a  peace  with  Denmark, 
by  which  she  renounced,  in  the  name  of  her  son,  all  claims  to 
the  Gottorp  lands  in  Holstein  in  exchange  for  Oldenburg  and 
Delmenhorst.  This  treaty,  which  was  brought  about  by  the 
able  diplomacy  of  Count  Bernstorf,  relieved  Denmark  of  a 
very  great  cause  of  danger,  and  although  only  conditional  at  the 
time  it  was  first  drawn  up,  owing  to  the  minority  of  the  Czare- 
vitz,  Paul,  it  was  duly  confirmed  by  him  when  he  reached  his 
majority  in  1773. 


DENMARK  FROM  1730  TO  1839.  321 

PART  II. 
STRUENSEE'S     RULE. 

Christian  VII.,  1766-1808. — Christian  VII.  was  only  seven- 
teen years  of  age  when  he  succeeded  his  father,  Frederick  V., 
in  1766,  and  in  the  same  year  he  married  his  cousin,  Caroline 
Matilda,  the  beautiful  sister  of  George  III.  of  England.  This 
prince  was  both  obstinate  and  morose,  and  was  weak  in  body 
and  mind.  His  distrust  of  his  stepmother,  the  dowager  queen 
Juliana  Maria,  induced  him  to  dismiss  from  his  service  all  who 
had  enjoyed  favour  during  the  former  reign,  and  to  fill  their 
places  with  new  favourites.  Thus  within  the  first  few  years  of  his 
reign,  Count  Bernstorf,  Admiral  Danneskjold-Samsoe,  to  whom 
the  Danish  navy  owed  much  of  its  efficiency,  and  several  other 
able  ministers  of  the  crown,  had  been  driven  out  of  the  country, 
and  all  the  power  of  the  state  thrown  into  the  hands,  first  of 
Count  Hoik,  a  young  man  of  vicious  habits,  who  did  much  to 
injure  the  king  in  health  and  character,  and  afterwards  into 
those  of  Brandt  and  Struensee.  These  two  men,  whose  names 
are  intimately  associated  with  the  extraordinary  events  which 
in  the  course  of  a  few  years  brought  about  their  own  and  the 
young  queen's  ruin,  and  threw  the  king  into  the  power  of  his 
enemies,  were  by  no  means  of  equal  ability  or  like  responsi- 
bility. Johan  Frederick  Struensee,  the  originator  and  guiding 
spirit  in  all  the  despotic  measures  in  which  both  were  engaged, 
was  a  man  of  great  natural  ability  and  extensive  knowledge. 
At  the  time  he  was  appointed  private  physician  to  Christian  VII. 
during  the  tour  which  that  king  made  in  1768  through  the 
principal  countries  of  Europe,  he  had  already  acquired  con- 
siderable reputation  both  in  his  profession  and  by  his  literary 
productions,  and  when  the  University  of  Oxford  in  the  course 
of  the  same  year  conferred  the  degree  of  D.C.L.  on  King 
Christian,  they  gave  that  of  M.D.  to  Struensee  "  in  recognition 
of  his  great  merits  in  science  and  literature."  By  his  address 
this  able  man  soon  supplanted  the  favourite,  Count  Hoik,  and 
succeeded  in  persuading  the  king  to  recall  from  banishmen 
his  former  chamberlain,  Enevold  von  Brandt,  and  Count 
Rantzau-Ascheberg,  a  dismissed  minister,  whose  acquaintance 

y 


322  SCA  NDINA  VIA  ff  HIS  TOR  Y. 

Struensee  had  made  in  Paris,  and  on  whose  gratitude  he 
thought  he  might  rely.  The  new  favourite  soon  appeared  to 
enjoy  the  confidence  of  the  young  queen  as  thoroughly  as  that 
of  her  half-witted  husband,  and  after  rapidly  rising  from  one 
degree  of  power  to  another,  Struensee  was  nominated  in  the 
summer  of  1771  to  the  rank  of  Prime  Minister  of  the  Privy 
Council,  a  dignity  hitherto  unknown  in  Denmark.  From  that 
moment  his  word  was  supreme,  for  instead  of  acting  in  concert 
with  the  various  ministerial  colleges,  as  had  been  customary  in 
the  case  of  other  Danish  ministers  of  the  crown,  Struensee 
governed  by  means  of  "  Cabinet  orders"  signed  only  by  him- 
self, which  were  to  have  the  same  weight  as  if  they  had  been 
royal  decrees  bearing  the  sovereign's  signature. 

The  downfall  of  Struensee  and  the  Queen. — Struensee's  extra- 
ordinary talents,  liberal  ideas,  and  great  capacity  for  business, 
joined  to  his  rapid  and  unhesitating  mode  of  forming  a  judg- 
ment, led  him  to  introduce  new  and  better  systems  of  govern- 
ment into  many  of  the  departments  of  the  public  service.  He 
improved  the  routine  of  the  law  courts,  organized  police  and 
sanitary  reforms,  established  freedom  of  the  press,  and  made 
much-needed  retrenchments  in  the  expenses  of  the  court  and 
of  all  the  public  offices.  On  the  other  hand,  his  insolent 
conduct,  his  contempt  for  all  the  observances  and  doctrines  of 
religion,  his  ignorance  of  the  language  and  habits  of  the  country 
over  which  he  ruled,  his  headstrong  haste  in  effecting  changes, 
and  the  suspicion  that  he  was  making  himself  and  his  friends 
rich  at  the  expense  of  the  working  classes,  who  were  heavily 
oppressed  with  taxes,  all  concurred  in  raising  a  host  of  enemies 
against  him  in  every  class  of  the  community.  The  queen 
dowager  and  her  son,  the  so-called  ''Hereditary  Prince" 
Frederick,  watched  the  minister's  rapid  rise  with  fear  and 
indignation,  and  when  on  the  occasion  of  some  disturbances 
amongst  the  sailors  in  the  docks,  Struensee  had  given  evidence 
of  want  of  personal  courage  and  presence  of  mind,  they 
thought  the  moment  favourable  to  join  with  Count  Rantzau- 
Ascheberg  and  others,  who  had  been  estranged  from  him  by 
his  own  arrogance.  A  plot  was  soon  formed,  and  o:a  the  night 
of  April  20th,  1772,  the  conspirators  forced  their  way  into  the 
king's  bedroom,  and  by  their  representations  of  the  queen's 


DENMARK  FROM  1730  TO  1839.  323 

conduct  and  of  her  intimacy  with  Struensee,  they  obtained 
Christian's  signature  to  an  order  for  her  arrest  and  that  of 
the  minister  and  his  devoted  friend,  Brandt.  The  unhappy 
Caroline  Matilda,  who  only  three  hours  before  had  closed  a 
court  ball  in  a  dance  with  Prince  Frederick,  was  awakened  out 
of  her  sleep  by  the  presence  of  an  armed  guard,  who  com- 
manded her  to  rise  and  dress  herself  in  all  haste  for  a  journey. 
The  same  night  she  was  conveyed  in  a  closed  carriage  to  the 
castle  of  Cronborg,  near  Elsinore,  without  being  allowed  to  see 
her  two  children,  the  elder  of  whom,  the  Crown  Prince  Frede- 
rick, was  only  three  years  old,  and  the  younger,  a  daughter, 
still  an  infant  in  arms.  After  a  formal  deed  of  separation  had 
been  passed  between  the  king  and  herself,  she  was  removed 
from  Cronborg  through  the  influence  of  her  brother,  King 
George  III.  of  England,  and  conveyed  in  an  English  man-^f- 
war  to  Zelle  in  Hanover,  where  she  died  in  1775,  at  the  early 
age  of  twenty-four,  from  an  attack  of  chicken-pox,  which  she 
had  caught  while  visiting  the  poor  and  sick. 

Struensee  and  Brandt  had  in  the  meantime  been  condemned 
to  death  for  treason,  and  sentenced  to  lose  their  right  hand 
before  they  were  beheaded,  and  this  sentence  was  publicly 
executed  outside  the  gates  of  Copenhagen  on  the  28th  of 
April,  1772;  but  beyond  these  two  victims  this  eventful  revo- 
lution was  free  from  bloodshed.  The  king's  constantly-in- 
creasing feebleness  of  mind  and  body  left  him  a  mere  tool  in 
the  hands  of  the  queen-dowager  and  her  son,  who  in  fact, 
although  not  in  name,  ruled  the  kingdom  till  the  year  1784, 
when  the  Crown  Prince  Frederick  attained  the  legal  majority 
of  sixteen,  and  at  once  claimed  the  right  of  acting  as  regent  or 
joint  ruler  with  his  father.  During  the  period  of  his  minority 
the  affairs  of  the  state  had  been  for  the  most  part  in  the 
hands  of  the  Hereditary  Prince's  friend,  Count  Ove  Hogh 
Guldberg,  who  had  been  a  chief  agent  in  bringing  about  the 
downfall  of  Struensee,  and  whose  policy  was  in  every  respect 
the  opposite  of  that  of  the  minister  whom  he  had  ruined. 
Under  Guldberg  all  the  laws,  whether  good  or  bad,  that  had  been 
passed  under  Struensee's  ministry  were  set  aside  ;  and  the  chief 
merit  of  this  minister  was  that  he  showed  a  patriotic  love  01 
his  own  country ;  encouraged  the  use  of  the  Danish  language, 

Y    2 


324  SCANDINA  VI AN  IIISTOR  Y. 

and  tried  to  check  the  influence  of  Germans  in  the  country  b_y 
appointing  only  native-born  or  naturalized  subjects  of  Den- 
mark to  places  of  trust  in  the  public  service.  But  his  reckless 
system  of  issuing  paper  money  threw  the  finances  into  great 
disorder,  and  thus  helped  to  bring  about  many  of  the  troubles 
which  disturbed  the  credit  and  peace  of  the  country  in  later 
years. 


PART  III. 

ENGLAND     HUMBLES     DENMARK. 

Prince  Frederick  rules  for  his  father. — The  first  act  of  the 
young  prince  was  to  dismiss  Count  Guldberg  and  his  party, 
and  recall  Count  Andreas  Peter  Bernstorf,  the  former  minister 
of  foreign  affairs,  who  had  some  years  before  retired  from  the 
public  service  in  consequence  of  differences  with  the  rest  of  the 
council.  By  Bernstorfs  cautious  policy,  Denmark  was  kept  at 
peace  while  almost  every  other  state  in  Europe  found  itself 
forced  to  take  part  in  the  revolutionary  wars  of  the  times.  The 
Danes  during  this  period  enjoyed  a  remarkable  degree  ot 
prosperity,  owing  to  the  condition  of  armed  neutrality  which 
Denmark  was  allowed  to  maintain,  and  which  now  enabled  her 
to  carry  her  trade  to  all  the  principal  mercantile  ports  of  the 
Baltic  and  German  Ocean.  While  the  trading  part  of  the 
community  were  thus  gaining  wealth  rapidly,  the  government, 
under  the  direction  of  the  crown  prince  and  Count  Bern- 
storf, were  bringing  about  many  great  and  useful  changes  in  the 
state.  Their  first  care  had  been  to  inquire  into  the  condition 
of  the  peasants,  and  in  1788  a  law  was  passed  giving  this  long 
oppressed  class  complete  freedom  from  all  the  bonds  by  which 
they  had  hitherto  been  kept  in  subjection  to  the  lords  on  whose 
lands  they  were  born.  In  order  to  prevent  any  undue  license 
on  the  part  of  the  younger  peasants,  the  measure  was  not  to 
come  into  full  force,  till  1800,  for  those  who  were  under  thirty- 
six  years  of  age  at  the  time  of  its  first  enactment.  The  slave 
trade  was  also  declared  illegal  at  this  period  in  all  the  Danish 
West  Indian  islands,  and  the  example  thus  set  by  Denmark 


DENMARK  FROM  1730  TO  1839.  325 

in   1792  was  soon  followed  by  England  and  other  European 
powers. 

As  long  as  Count  Bernstorf  lived,  causes  of  strife  had  been 
kept  down  between  Denmark  and  England,  but  not  without 
difficulty,  for  the  English  often  made  complaints  against  the 
Danes  for  carrying  food  and  forage  into  French  and  German 
ports,  which  they  declared  was  contrary  to  the  laws  of  neu- 
trality ;  and  when,  after  his  death  in  1799,  Danish  men-of-war 
were  sent  to  sea  to  protect  the  merchant  vessels,  there  was  a 
new  source  of  trouble  raised  up  which  soon  led  to  open 
hostilities.  The  first  quarrels  were  smoothed  over;  but  when, 
in  the  summer  of  1800,  Russia,  Sweden,  and  Prussia  formed  a 
treaty  for  an  "  armed  neutrality"  which  they  invited  Denmark 
to  join,  England  took  alarm,  and,  to  prevent  this  compact,  sent 
a  fleet  under  Admirals  Parker  and  Nelson  to  the  Cattegat  in 
the  spring  of  the  following  year.  The  Danes  were  wholly  un- 
prepared for  such  a  step,  and  did  their  best  to  prevent  the 
English  from  passing  the  Sound.  But  Parker's  fleet  of  fifty-one 
ships,  including  twenty  line-of-battle  ships,  by  keeping  close  in 
to  the  Swedish  coast,  got  clear  of  the  heavy  cannons  of  the 
fortress  of  Cronborg,  near  Elsinore,  at  the  mouth  of  the  narrow 
strait  between  Sweden  and  Denmark,  and  cast  anchor  in  the 
harbour  of  Copenhagen  on  ist  of  April,  1801.  The  next 
morning,  Shrove  Tuesday,  Nelson  attacked  the  Danish  defences, 
and  then  followed  a  fierce  and  bloody  engagement,  which  lasted 
between  four  and  five  hours,  and  ended  by  Nelson  sending  an 
English  officer  on  shore  under  a  flag  of  truce  as  a  bearer  of  a 
letter,  in  which  he  declared  that  unless  the  Danes  ceased  firing 
he  would  burn  the  Danish  ships  in  his  hands  without  being 
able  to  save  their  crews.  The  crown  prince,  against  the  wishes 
and  advice  of  his  commanders,  consented  to  give  orders  for 
stopping  all  further  firing  on  the  part  of  the  Danes,  and  agreed 
to  discuss  terms  of  peace.  And  thus  ended  a  battle  of  which 
Nelson  said,  that  it  was  the  best  contested  and  the  fiercest  of 
the  hundred  and  five  engagements  in  which  he  had  taken  part. 
The  Danish  seamen,  under  their  brave  and  able  commander, 
Olfert  Fischer,  fought  with  the  daring  for  which  their  nation 
had  in  former  ages  been  noted.  Three  times  the  aged  Fischer 
left  one  burning  ship  to  hoist  his  flag  on  another,  while  several 


326  SCANDINAVIAN  HISTORY. 


of  the  younger  captains,  amongst  whom  the  Danes  dwell  with 
special  pride  on  the  names  of  Lassen,  Risbrich,  and  Villemoes, 
defended  their  ships  against  larger  vessels  as  long  as  the  shat- 
tered hulks  kept  above  water. 

Denmark  the  carrier  of  Europe. — The  death  of  the  Emperor 
Paul,  and  the  new  alliance  made  by  his  son  and  successor, 
Alexander,  with  England,  put  an  end  to  the  compact  of  armed 
neutrality  which  had  given  rise  to  this  unfortunate  war.  Den- 
mark now  enjoyed  a  few  years  of  peace,  and  her  trade  both 
in  the  new  and  the  old  world  rose  to  a  degree  of  activity  which 
it  had  never  before  reached.  At  this  period  the  Danes  were, 
in  fact,  the  great  trading  agents  for  all  the  other  countries  in 
Europe,  which  during  those  early  years  of  the  present  century 
were  more  or  less  engaged  in  war  with  France.  This  pro- 
sperous condition  of  things  was,  however,  rudely  disturbed  in 
1807,  when  the  English  government,  having  or  believing  that 
they  had  good  grounds  for  thinking  that  Denmark  had  entered 
into  a  treaty  with  Napoleon  and  the  Emperor  Alexander  of 
Russia  against  England,  sent  fifty-four  ships  of  war  under 
Admiral  Gambier  to  demand  the  immediate  delivery  of  the 
Danish  fleet  in  order  to  prevent  its  use  in  the  cause  of  the 
French  emperor. 

The  moment  was  an  unfavourable  one  for  the  Danes,  as  the 
royal  family  and  nearly  all  the  Danish  army  were  in  Holstein, 
where  the  crown  prince  had  reason  to  fear  that  an  attack  might 
l^e  made  from  the  German  frontier,  and  Copenhagen  was  thus 
left  in  a  specially  unprotected  state.  When  the  commandant 
of  the  city,  General  Peymann,  refused  to  comply  with  the 
demands  of  the  English  admiral,  33,000  men  were  landed 
under  General  Cathcart,  and  the  town  formally  attacked  by 
land  and  sea.  A  fierce  bombardment  of  three  days  laid  a  large 
portion  of  the  city  in  ashes,  and  forced  General  Peymann  to 
admit  the  English  troops  into  the  citadel  of  Frederikshavn. 
The  result  of  this  attack,  which  the  Danes  looked  upon  as  a 
\\anton  act  of  piracy,  unworthy  of  a  great  naval  power  like 
England,  was  that  the  English  carried  off  18  ships  of  the  line, 
21  frigates,  6  brigs,  and  25  gun-boats,  besides  an  immense 
ii mount  of  naval  stores  of  every  kind. 

The  Danes  were  nearly  crushed  by  the  blow,  and  a  genera- 


DENMARK  FROM  1730  TO  1839.  327 

tion  passed  away  before  this  fatal  wrong  was  forgiven  by  the 
nation,  amongst  whom  the  memory  of  the  deed  stills  recalls  a 
bitter  sense  of  injury.  The  troubles  of  Denmark  increased 
when,  the  year  after,  Gustavus  IV.  of  Sweden,  trusting  to  the 
support  of  England,  made  an  attempt  to  seize  upon  Norway, 
and  in  that  dark  hour  of  his  country's  history,  poor  King 
Christian  VII.  ended  his  useless  life  on  the  i3th  of  March, 
1808. 

Frederick  F/.,  1808-1839. — When  Frederick  VI.,  on  the 
death  of  his  father  in  1808,  exchanged  his  title  of  regent  for 
that  of  King  of  Denmark,  the  country  was  sinking  into  a  state 
of  abject  misery.  The  harsh  policy  of  the  British  government 
had  at  one  blow  crushed  its  commerce  as  well  as  its  fleet,  for 
Danish  trading  ships  were  nowhere  safe  from  the  attack  of 
English  men-of-war,  and  before  the  restoration  of  peace  it  was 
computed  that  upwards  of  1,200  of  these  vessels  had  been 
seized  with  their  cargoes,  valued  at  more  than  thirty  million  of 
rix  dollars.  The  position  of  Denmark  at  the  outbreak  of  the 
war  between  France  and  the  northern  powers  had  been  most 
critical  and  difficult.  The  bombardment  of  Copenhagen  in 
1807,  and  the  seizure  of  the  well-appointed  fleet,  to  which  the 
nation  trusted  as  a  means  of  certain  defence  against  foreign 
invasion,  had  created  so  bitter  a  feeling  of  resentment  amongst 
the  people  against  England,  that  whatever  might  be  the  real 
feelings  of  King  Frederick,  he  had  no  alternative  but  to 
follow  the  general  wishes  of  his  subjects,  and  unite  himself 
with  Napoleon  against  Great  Britain,  although  he  and  his 
government  seem  from  the  first  to  have  been  fully  aware  that 
the  emperor  in  his  policy  would  consult  only  his  own  interests. 
This  alliance  soon  brought  on  the  most  unhappy  results,  for,  on 
pretence  of  supporting  Denmark  against  an  invasion  by  the 
Swedes,  and  aiding  her  in  recovering  her  old  Swedish  provinces, 
Napoleon  sent  an  army  of  30,000  men  under  General  Berna- 
dotte  (Prince  of  Ponte  Corvo)  into  Slesvig-Holstein,  where 
they  remained  over  a  year  on  one  pretence  or  another  without 
affording  any  help  to  Denmark.  The  cost  and  disturbances 
to  which  the  presence  of  such  a  large  body  of  foreign  troops 
necessarily  gave  rise  were  rendered  still  more  burdensome  by 
the  want  of  discipline  and  the  discontent  of  the  men,  amongst 


328  SCAN&JNA  VI AN  HISTGR  K 

whom  there  were  14,000  Spaniards,  under  the  command  of  the 
Marquis  de  la  Romana,  who  during  the  whole  of  their  stay  in 
the  Danish  peninsula  were  engaged  in  intrigues  to  escape  from 
the  service  of  the  French  emperor  and  unite  with  the  English. 
When  the  news  reached  them  that  Napoleon  had  deposed  the 
King  of  Spain  and  placed  his  brother  Joseph  on  the  Spanish 
throne,  their  long-brooding  discontent  broke  out  into  open  re- 
bellion, and  the  country  was  disturbed  by  a  civil  war  amongst 
its  self-appointed  defenders.  A  squadron  of  English  ships, 
which  had  been  sent  to  co-operate  with  the  Spanish  detach- 
ment in  the  Danish  provinces,  succeeded  in  taking  large 
numbers  on  board  from  Jutland  and  the  island  of  Langeland, 
while  the  few  regiments  which  were  unable  to  escape  were  dis- 
armed by  the  Danes  and  kept  as  prisoners  of  war.  In  1809, 
Bernadotte,  without  striking  a  blow  in  defence  of  Denmark, 
withdrew  with  his  well-recruited  troops,  and  immediately  after- 
wards the  English  seized  upon  Anholt,  which  they  retained  as 
a  favourable  station  to  control  the  passage  between  Denmark 
and  Norway.  At  this  time  the  government  of  Frederick  VI. 
took  the  desperate  resolution  of  meeting  the  heavy  debts 
which  they  had  incurred  in  this  unfortunate  war  by  issuing 
142  millions  of  paper  notes,  and  when  it  was  seen  that  their 
nominal  value  could  not  be  obtained  even  in  the  Danish 
provinces,  they  were  suddenly  reduced  to  one-sixth  of  their 
assumed  worth.  This  measure  saved  the  government  from 
the  bankruptcy  that  seemed  inevitable,  but  it  ruined  nearly 
all  the  chief  trading  and  banking  houses  in  Denmark,  and 
created  great  distress  in  almost  every  class  of  the  population. 

Denmark  loses  Aoncay. — The  Danish  king's  policy  was 
throughout  this  period  weak  and  changeable,  and  after  a  series  of 
mortifications  and  disappointments,  he  found  himself  compelled 
in  1814  to  agree  to  the  peace  of  Kiel.  In  accordance  with 
the  terms  of  this  treaty,  Denmark  was  forced  to  give  Norway 
to  Sweden,  after  the  Danish  and  Norwegian  crowns  had  been 
united  for  400  years,  and  to  accept  in  exchange  Swedish 
Pomerania  and  Riigen,  which,  however,  were  at  once  ceded 
to  Prussia  in  return  for  Lauenburg  and  the  payment  of  two 
million  of  rix  dollars.  England  required  for  herself  the  cession 
of  Heligoland,  to  secure  the  command  of  the  Elbe ;  and,  thus 


DENMARK  FROM  1730  TO  1839.  329 

bereft  of  all  her  best  points  of  defence,  Denmark  was  forced 
to  join  the  allies,  and  at  the  Congress  of  Vienna,  in  1814,  her 
king  had  to  content  himself  with  being  admitted  into  the  German 
confederation  as  Duke  of  Holstein  and  Lauenburg.  These 
terms  were  peculiarly  mortifying  to  Frederick  VI.,  because  he 
had  more  than  once  thought  himself  secure  of  the  crown  of 
Sweden  in  addition  to  those  which  he  bore  as  king  of  Denmark 
and  Norway.  When  the  Swedes  resolved  in  1809  to  elect  a 
successor  to  their  childless  king,  Charles  XIII.,  Prince  Christian 
August  of  Augustenborg,  Danish  viceroy  of  Norway,  led  King 
Frederick  to  believe  that  the  Swedish  nation  were  anxious  to 
be  re-united  with  Denmark,  but  that  monarch  soon  learnt  how 
little  faith  could  be  placed  in  such  assurances  when  he  found 
that  the  prince  himself  had  been  elected  to  succeed  King 
Charles.  The  sudden  death  of  Prince  Christian  in  1810  re- 
opened the  question  of  the  succession,  and  King  Frederick  again 
allowed  himself  to  be  deluded  by  false  hopes,  which  were  de- 
stroyed by  the  choice  of  one  of  Napoleon's  marshals,  General 
Bernadotte,  who  was  proclaimed  Crown  Prince  of  Sweden,  in 
the  same  year,  and  succeeded  to  the  joint  throne  of  Sweden 
and  Norway  on  the  death  of  Charles  XIII.  in  1818. 

Frederick  VI.  released  the  Norwegians  from  their  oaths  of 
allegiance  to  him  in  accordance  with  the  treaty  of  Kiel,  and  in 
all  outward  respects  he  apparently  complied  with  the  engage- 
ments which  he  had  entered  into  towards  the  allied  powers. 
But  it  does  not  seem  that  he  was  entirely  ignorant  of  the 
measures  which  were  being  taken  at  the  very  time  by  his  cousin, 
Prince  Christian  of  Denmark,  to  separate  Norway  from  Sweden 
and  declare  it  an  independent  state.  For  a  few  months  the 
prince  gained  ground  in  his  efforts  to  rouse  the  national  dislike 
of  the  Norwegians  for  their  Swedish  neighbours ;  and  in  May 
1814  he  was  proclaimed  King  of  Norway  at  a  diet  held  at 
Ejdsvold,  where  he  gave  the  people  a  new  code  of  laws,  based 
upon  that  of  the  French  Revolution  of  1791.  Before  the  close 
of  the  same  year,  the  Swedish  crown  prince,  Bernadotte,  put 
clown  this  movement,  forced  Prince  Christian  to  leave  the 
country,  and  in  the  name  of  the  king,  Charles  XIII.,  received 
the  homage  of  the  Norwegians,  and  confirmed  all  their  national 
privileges. 


330  SCAXDINA  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 

The  Danes  rally  from  their  troubles. — Many  years  passed 
after  the  peace  of  1814  before  the  Danes  began  to  recover 
from  the  depression  and  calamities  of  the  earlier  part  of  the 
century.  The  establishment,  in  1818,  of  a  national  bank, 
which  was  wholly  independent  of  the  state,  was  the  first  step 
towards  a  better  condition  of  the  monetary  system.  By  degrees, 
trade  and  confidence  in  the  resources  of  the  country  revived, 
and  a  proper  and  fair  proportion  of  silver  money  was  made  to 
replace  the  former  worthless  paper  notes  of  the  government. 
The  more  prosperous  condition  of  the  people  soon  led  them 
to  interest  themselves  in  the  course  and  management  of  public 
affairs,  and  this  newly  awakened  feeling  had  assumed  so  decided 
a  character  after  the  revolution  of  1830  in  France,  that  King 
Frederick,  to  avert  any  dangerous  results  of  the  popular  desire 
for  self-government,  and  entirely  in  opposition  to  his  own  con- 
servative principles,  proclaimed  the  establishment  of  legislative 
chambers  in  the  spring  of  1831.  The  nation  seized  with 
eagerness  upon  this  opportunity  of  asserting  their  rights,  and 
poured  forth  their  gratitude  to  the  king  in  the  most  enthu- 
siastic manner.  In  1831,  when  the  scheme  for  the  new 
assemblies  was  fully  arranged,  different  chambers  were  opened 
for  the  Islands  at  Roeskilde,  for  Jutland  at  Viborg,  for  Slesvig 
in  the  town  of  Slesvig,  and  for  Holstein  at  Itzehoe.  To  these 
chambers  were  to  be  submitted  for  consideration  and  approval 
all  laws  affecting  the  personal  condition  of  the  citizens  of  the 
respective  provinces,  and  all  projects  of  taxation.  The  finances 
of  the  kingdom  became  the  first  object  of  consideration  for 
the  new  chambers,  which,  not  satisfied  with  the  amount  of  in- 
formation accorded  to  them  on  the  subject  of  the  disposal  of 
the  revenue,  petitioned  the  king  for  leave  to  form  a  committee 
of  inquiry  into  the  working  of  the  financial  departments  of  the 
government.  This  was  not  granted  to  the  satisfaction  of  the 
chambers,  and  during  the  remainder  of  Frederick  VI. "s  reign 
little  progress  was  made  in  this  direction.  In  the  meanwhile 
the  question  of  the  freedom  of  the  press  had  begun  to  excite 
the  minds  of  men  of  all  classes.  The  king  and  his  chief  friends 
taking  speedy  alarm  at  the  free  discussion  of  public  matters 
which  now  for  the  first  time  filled  the  papers,  and  unable  to 
rescind  the  rights  of  free  speech  granted  to  the  members  of 


DENMARK  FROM  1730  TO  1839.  331 

the  different  chambers,  although  they  would  gladly  have  put 
them  down,  determined  to  impose  restrictions  on  the  press. 
The  first  decisive  step  taken  by  the  government  was  to  inter- 
dict the  further  publication  of  fcedrelandet,  a  weekly  paper, 
conducted  by  the  learned  C.  N.  David,  professor  of  political 
economy  in  the  University  of  Copenhagen.  Dr.  David  was 
brought  before  the  law  courts  on  the  charge  of  seditious 
writing,  but  acquitted,  to  the  universal  joy  of  all  the  liberal 
party  and  to  the  extreme  annoyance  of  the  government,  which 
deprived  him  in  the  following  year  (1836)  of  his  chair. 

In  the  midst  of  a  turmoil  of  strong  political  feeling  Frede- 
rick VI.  died  after  a  rule  of  fifty-five  years,  leaving  the  character 
of  a  well-meaning  but  feeble  ruler,  whose  thoroughly  patriotic 
love  of  his  country  and  his  people  made  him  personally  dear 
to  all  classes  of  his  subjects,  in  spite  of  the  many  blunders  and 
shortcomings  of  his  administration. 


CHAPTER   XXIV. 

SWEDEN     FROM     1697     TO 

Charles  XII.  better  known  than  other  .Swedish  kings  to  foreigners — The 
Regency  appointed  by  Charles  XL — The  Estates  set  it  aside  and  allow 
Charles  XII.,  at  the  age  of  fifteen,  to  rule — His  absolute  power — His 
character — His  bringing  up — Dangerous  pursuits — His  enemies  plot 
against  him — He  leaves  his  sports  and  turns  in  earnest  to  work — Carries 
the  war  into  Denmark — Attacks  Copenhagen — Shows  wonderful  mili- 
tary skill — Danish  king  forced  to  make  peace — Charles  relieves  Riga 
• — Defeats  the  Russians — Takes  more  prisoners  than  he  can  keep — Ne  v 
victories  in  Poland — Charles  regulates  Polish  affairs,  humbles  King 
Augustus,  opens  a  court  in  Saxony — Czar  Peter  begins  to  build  his 
capital  on  Swedish  ground — Marvellous  advance  of  Swedes— Their 
daring,  their  sufferings — Mazeppa — Czar  advances — Charles  wounded — - 
Defeat  and  capture  of  the  Swedish  army — Flight  of  Charles  to  Turkey — - 
Troubles  at  home  during  his  absence — No  generals  but  Stenbock  to 
defend  Sweden — His  "  wooden  shoes  " — Charles  in  Turkey — Troubles 
of  Czar — Catherine  saves  the  Russian  army — Charles  plots,  and  feigns  ill- 
ness— At  Inst  escapes  and  returns  to  his  dominions-  -  Defends  Slralsund 

—  Remains  at    Lund — Giirtz — Ills  measures — Denmark   saved  by  thaw 

—  Charles  attacks  Norway — Is  killed — The  su.-piciou  of  murder — Lo*e 
of  people  for  him — His  merits  — His  place  of  burial--  (Question  of  suc- 
cession—I  low  settled — His  sister  Ulrika   proclaiim-d — Her  submission 
to  nobles  -Resigns  supreme  power  to   her  husband  —  Frederick  I. —  His 
weak  rule --His  linle  power — Factions — "Hatsand  Caps  " — Swedes  go 
to  war  with  Russia — Their  defeat — Adolph  Frederick  of  Slcsvig-Gottorp 
succeeds — A  mere  puppet — Humiliation— Sarcastic    remark  of   king's 
brother-ill  law,  Frederick   II.  of  Prussia — Wishes  to   abdicate — Dies  in 
the  midst  of  party  troubles. 

PART  I. 
THE     SWEDISH     CONQUEROR. 

Charles  XII. ,  1697-1718.  —  CHAKLI.S  XI  I.  of  Sweden  is  better 
known  to  the  people  of  foreign  countries  than  almost  any  other 
Swedish  monarch,  because  the  wonderful  exploits  of  his  life 
have  been  made  the  subje:t  of  many  special  \vorks  by  writers 


DENMARK  FROM  1697  TO  1771.  333 

in  almost  every  European  tongue.  His  father,  Charles  XI., 
left  at  his  death  full  directions  for  the  appointment  of  a  regency 
to  rule  the  kingdom  until  the  young  king  reached  the  age  of 
eighteen ;  but  the  National  Estates  of  Sweden  did  not  like 
the  idea  of  again  placing  the  supreme  power  in  the  hands 
of  regents,  and  in  the  diet  which  met  soon  afterwards  they 
declared  Charles  XII.  to  be  no  longer  a  minor.  The  young 
king,  who  was  at  the  time  only  fifteen,  at  once  called  upon  th" 
different  orders  of  the  state  to  do  him  homage,  and  went 
through  a  simple  form  of  coronation,  in  which  he  with  his  own 
hands  placed  the  crown  on  his  head,  without,  however,  having 
tendered  the  oath  of  fidelity  to  his  people  which  was  usual  in 
these  cases.  A  mere  lad  thus  became  the  absolute  and  sole 
master  of  the  fate  of  his  people  and  kingdom,  and  before  long 
he  gave  evidence  of  a  self-willed  obstinacy  and  independence 
of  character  which  did  not  promise  well  for  the  quiet  and 
comfort  of  his  subjects.  Without  consulting  the  opinions  or 
wishes  of  the  Council  of  State,  he  managed  the  affairs  of  the 
government  as  he  thought  best,  and  would  listen  to  no  one 
but  his  own  special  favourite,  Karl  Piper. 

Charles  XII.  was  not  wanting  in  good  sense  and  upright 
feelings,  and  by  his  mother,  Ulrika  Eleanora,  the  "  Fred  Kulla  " 
of  Denmark,  he  had  been  trained  to  observe  all  the  practices 
of  religion  and  to  show  deference  towards  the  opinions  of  his 
elders,  but  after  her  death  very  little  was  done  for  him  beyond 
giving  him  masters  in  various  branches  of  learning.  Thus  at 
the  time  he  became  king,  although  well-informed  for  his  age, 
he  was  wholly  unsuited  from  want  of  proper  training  to  perform 
the  duties  entrusted  to  him.  He  had  soon  squandered  all  the 
money  collected  by  his  father,  plunging  with  childish  eagerness 
into  every  kind  of  daring  amusement  that  he  could  devise,  and 
risking  his  life  in  break-neck  rides,  mock  fights,  bear-hunts, 
and  other  dangerous  sports.  Neighbouring  princes  who  heard 
of  these  pursuits,  and  thought  that  there  could  be  nothing  to 
fear  from  a  king  whose  time  and  strength  were  wasted  on  such 
occupations,  began  to  scheme  against  him,  and  soon  a  secret 
plot  was  formed  between  his  cousin,  Frederick  IV.  of  Den- 
mark, the  Czar  Peter  the  Great,  and  Augustus  King  of  Poland, 
to  recover  some  of  the  lands  conquered  by  Charles's  prede- 


334  SCAXDINA  VIAN  HISTOR  Y. 

cessors.  Early  in  the  year  1700  the  Polish  king  invaded 
Livonia,  while  the  Danes  attacked  the  lands  of  Charles's  brother- 
in-law,  the  Duke  of  Holstein-Gottorp,  and  after  taking  Gottorp 
laid  siege  to  Tonningen. 

Charles  begins  life  in  earnest. — The  Swedish  king,  who  was 
only  eighteen  at  the  time,  showed  no  surprise  or  alarm  at 
finding  himself  thus  made  the  object  of  attack  by  his  supposed 
friends  and  allies.  Leaving  the  sports  in  which  he  had  seemed 
to  take  so  much  delight,  but  which  he  never  again  resumed,  he 
turned  to  meet  the  danger  which  beset  him,  and  sending  an 
army  of  Swedes  and  Luneburgers  to  relieve  Tonningen,  he 
applied  for  ships  to  William  of  Orange,  King  of  England,  and 
with  a  united  fleet  of  Swedish,  Dutch,  and  English  vessels, 
proceeded  to  bombard  Copenhagen.  Seeing  that  little  progress 
was  made  in  this  undertaking,  he  determined  to  attack  the  city 
by  land  as  well  as  by  sea,  and  taking  the  command  himself,  he 
effected  a  landing  at  the  little  village  of  Humlebek,  where  he 
made  all  the  necessary  arrangements  for  encamping  his  troops 
with  as  much  order  and  quickness  as  if  he  had  been  long 
experienced  in  the  art  of  warfare.  By  the  strict  discipline 
which  he  maintained  in  his  army,  he  won  the  good-will  of  the 
Sj?eland  peasants,  who  in  those  times  were  not  accustomed  to 
great  men  willing  to  pay  for  what  they  had  the  power  of  taking 
from  them  by  force.  Wonderful  tales  of  the  coolness  and 
daring  of  the  young  Swedish  hero  were  long  current  amongst 
the  country  people  ;  and  it  was  related  of  him,  that  when  he 
was  bringing  his  troops  to  Humlebek,  in  his  impatience  to 
land  he  sprang  from  the  boat,  and  waded  through  the  water 
which  came  nearly  up  to  his  waist,  till  he  reached  the  shore, 
when,  springing  first  to  land,  he  waved  his  sword  over  his  head, 
and  cried  out  joyously  as  he  heard  the  enemy's  balls  whistling 
through  the  air,  "This  is  the  very  best  music  I  have  ever  heard, 
and  I  shall  never  care  for  any  other  as  long  as  I  live  ! " 

When  King  Frederick  learnt  that  his  Swedish  cousin  in 
person  was  attacking  his  capital  on  land,  and  that  a  fleet  was 
threatening  it  from  without,  he  at  once  made  peace  with  the 
Holstein-Gottorp  prince,  and  agreed  to  the  terms  proposed  by 
Charles.  As  soon  as  this  matter  was  settled,  the  Swedish  king 
crossed  the  Baltic  to  the  relief  of  Riga,  which  was  being  in- 


SWEDEN  FROM  1697  TO  1771.  335 

vested  by  a  combined  army  of  Poles,  Russians,  and  Saxons ; 
and  having  driven  off  the  assailants  and  relieved  the  garrison, 
which,  under  the  command  of  the  Swedish  general,  Dahlberg, 
had  made  a  gallant  and  nearly  desperate  defence,  he  advanced 
towards  Narva  in  Ingermanland.  This  place,  which  belonged 
to  Sweden,  was  being  besieged  by  60,000  Russians,  under  the 
command  of  the  Due  de  Croy.  With  perfect  indifference  to 
the  numbers  of  the  enemy,  Charles  advanced  against  them 
with  only  8,000  men,  whom  he  led  to  the  attack  by  seemingly 
impassable  tracks  and  through  well-defended  passes,  and, 
storming  their  entrenchments,  he  thoroughly  routed  the  Rus- 
sians, 18,000  of  whom  were  drowned  in  the  Narva,  and  so 
many  made  prisoners  that  the  Swedes  were  forced,  after  dis- 
arming them,  to  let  them  disperse  in  whichever  direction  they 
liked.  This  victory,  which  was  unparalleled  of  its  kind  in 
history,  spread  the  fame  of  the  young  king  over  all  Europe ; 
but  it  may  be  said  to  have  been  attended  by  evil  rather  than 
good  to  himself;  for  while  his  vanity  and  self-will  increased 
with  the  adulation  everywhere  paid  to  his  military  skill,  he 
was  led  on  to  pursue  a  course  of  wild  and  aimless  invasion  of 
neighbouring  lands  which  led  to  his  own  later  misfortunes  and 
nearly  ruined  his  kingdom. 

Charles  keeps  Court  in  Saxony. — In  the  following  year 
Charles  advanced  into  Poland,  took  Warsaw  by  storm,  and 
in  the  battles  of  Klissov  and  Pultusk  so  completely  humbled 
Augustus,  the  Saxon  king  of  the  Poles,  that  he  had  to  give  up 
the  Polish  crown  and  retire  into  his  own  dominions  of  Saxony. 
At  the  diet  of  Warsaw  in  1704  the  young  Vojvod  of  Posen, 
Stanislaus  Leczinsky,  was,  through  Charles's  influence,  pro- 
claimed king  ;  and,  after  several  brilliant  victories  in  Silesia  and 
Saxony,  Augustus  was  forced  to  sue  for  peace  and  to  accept 
the  terms  offered  him  by  the  young  Swedish  monarch,  which 
included  the  surrender  of  the  Livonian  noble,  Baron  Patkul. 
This  man,  who  had  been  outlawed  by  Charles  XL  on  account 
of  his  numerous  attempts  to  free  his  country  from  the  power 
of  Sweden,  had  never  slackened  his  efforts  to  injure  that 
kingdom  during  the  years  in  which  he  had  found  a  safe  retreat 
at  the  court  of  Augustus  ;  and  by  the  command  of  Charles  XII. 
he  was  now  made  to  expiate  these  offences  by  a  cruel  death. 


336  SCANDINA  WAN  HISTOR  Y. 


The  Swedish  king,  after  humbling  Augustus  and  taking  ven- 
geance on  his  father's  old  foe,  spent  a  year  in  visiting  and 
entertaining  the  crowd  of  foreign  princes  who  thronged  to  his 
little  court  in  Saxony  and  sought  his  friendship  and  alliance  ; 
and  so  great  was  Charles's  influence  that  the  German  emperor, 
Joseph  I.,  at  his  request  granted  liberty  of  conscience  to  all  the 
Protestants  in  his  Silesian  territories.  During  the  six  years  that 
Charles  remained  in  Poland  the  Russians,  under  their  Czar, 
Peter  the  Great,  had  been  busy  in  securing  their  footing  in 
Ingermanland  and  Livonia,  the  control  of  which  was  essential 
to  the  success  of  the  schemes  which  that  prince  had  in  view 
for  carrying  the  Russian  boundaries  to  the  shores  of  the  Baltic. 
To  prevent  the  possibility  of  his  people  ever  giving  up  these 
lands,  Peter  took  the  extraordinary  resolution  of  building  his 
new  capital  on  the  banks  of  the  Neva,  which  was  still  included 
in  the  old  Swedish  province  of  Ingermanland.  Thousands  of 
Russian  peasants  and  Swedish  prisoners  of  war  fell  victims  to 
the  severity  of  the  labours  they  were  forced  to  undergo  in 
draining  the  swampy  ground  on  which  the  future  St.  Peters- 
burg was  raised.  The  few  Swedish  commanders  who  had 
been  left  to  defend  the  frontiers  could  effect  very  little  against 
the  overwhelming  numbers  of  the  Russians  ;  but  Charles  XII., 
instead  of  coming  to  their  aid  after  he  had  secured  peace  with 
Poland  and  Saxony,  attempted  to  change  the  course  of  the 
war  by  plunging  into  the  heart  of  his  enemy's  country  and 
attacking  their  capital,  Moscow.  This  policy,  which  was  not 
regulated  by  any  proper  plan,  did  not  prove  as  successful  as 
in  the  case  of  Denmark  ;  and,  finding  that  the  Czar  seemed 
in  no  way  affected  by  his  movements,  he  determined  to  throw 
himself  into  the  Ukraine,  because  a  lletman,  or  chief  of  the 
Ukranian  Cossacks,  called  Ivan  Mazcppa,  had  offered  to  help 
him  with  30,000  men  against  Peter. 


TART  II. 
CHARLES  IN  TURKEY. 

Troubles   and  defeat  of  Charles. — The   Swedes   drove   the 
Russians  before  them  wherever  they  appeared,  and  let  nothing 


SWEDEN  FROM  1697   TO  1771.  337 

stop  their  march.     When  they  came  to  any  piece  of  water  or 
stream  that  could  be  forded,  they  waded  across,  holding  their 
weapons  high  above  their  heads  to  keep  them  dry  ;  and  in  this 
way  they  went   onwards   till   they  reached    Holovin   on    the 
Dnieper,   where   they   gave  the    Russians   battle  and  routed 
them.     This  victory  increased  Charles's  confidence,  and  with- 
out waiting   for   his   general,  Levenhaupt,  who  was   to  have 
joined  him  with  reinforcements  from  Courland,  he  pushed  on, 
and  only  stopped  in  his  insane  march  when  the  excessive  cold 
forced  him  to  go  into  winter  quarters.     The  season  was  more 
than  commonly  severe  even  for  that  climate,  and  the  Swedes 
suffered  greatly  from  hunger  and  cold.     Charles  shared  cheer- 
fully in  all  their  privations,  eating  the  same  coarse  food  as  his 
men,   and  often  having  to   content   himself  like   them   with 
mouldy  bread,  while  he  had  no  means  of  keeping  the  frost  out 
of  his  tent  except  by  having  heated  cannon  balls  rolled  along 
the   floor.     In    the   meanwhile   the  czar,  who  was  not  so  in- 
cautious or  inexpert  as  Charles  wished  to  believe,  caused  the 
country  to  be  lakl  waste  through  which  the  Swedes  would  have 
to  make  their  retreat,  fortified  all  the  passes,  and  used  his 
influence  over  die  Cossack  chiefs  so  well  that  they  all  fell  away 
from  Mazeppa,  who  had  to  flee  from  his  own  revolted  soldiers 
and  take  refuge  in  the  Swedish  camp.     To  complete  the  mis- 
fortunes of  the  king,  his  friend  Levenhaupt  was  met  and  over- 
powered by  an  immense  army  of  Russians  while  on  his  way  to 
join  him  ;  and  although  he  kept  up  a  desperate  defence  for  two 
days,  and  escaped  with  a  remnant  of  6,000  men,  he  lost  all 
his   baggage  and   stores,   with  more  than  half  his  men,   and 
reached  the  Swedish  lines  in  a  battered  and  worn  condition. 
Hunger  and   disease  reduced  the   army  to   1 8,000  men,  and 
with  this  small  number  Charles  laid  siege  to  Pultavar  where  he 
hoped  to  find  food  and  clothing,  of  which  he  stood  in  sore 
need.     The  czar  and  his  minister,  Menkikoff,  were,  however, 
advancing  with  55,000  men  to  the  relief  of  the  place,  and  soon 
the  two  armies  lay  encamped  within  sight  of  each  other.     The 
Swedes  awaited  the  attack,  but  finding  that  the  czar  would  not 
venture  upon  making  the  first  move,  Charles  resolved  to  try  to 
take    the   Russian   entrenchments    by   assault.     Having  been 
badly  wounded  in  the  foot  during  a  previous  skirmish,  he  had 

z 


333  SCAN  DIN  A  VIAN  IIISTOR  Y. 

to  be  carried  in  a  litter,  and,  giving  the  chief  command  to  his 
general,  Rehnskold,  he  reduced  Levenhaupt  to  the  rank  of 
second  in  authority.  This  act  created  much  jealousy  and  ill- 
will  between  the  generals,  and  dispirited  the  soldiers,  who, 
missing  their  king's  authority,  lost  much  of  their  usual  daring 
and  steadiness.  Their  old  spirit  and  long-used  habits  of 
assault  made  them  bear  the  Russians  down  before  them  on 
their  first  attack,  but  in  consequence  of  the  contradictory 
orders  of  their  commanders  the  men  got  confused  and  began 
to  waver,  when  the  overwhelming  numbers  of  the  enemy  soon 
crushed  them,  Rehnskold  was  taken  captive  with  a  great 
number  of  his  division,  and  after  a  few  days  Levenhaupt  was 
forced  to  surrender  with  the  remnant  of  the  army,  few  of  whom 
survived  through  their  long  and  severe  captivity  to  revisit  their 
own  country.  Charles  himself  only  escaped  falling  into  the 
power  of  the  Russians  by  a  most  adventurous  and  hazardous 
flight  over  the  Steppes  to  Bender,  in  the  Turkish  dominions, 
where  he  was  hospitably  received  by  the  Seraskir,  or  com- 
mandant. He  had  at  first  determined  to  remain  with  his 
men  and  share  their  unhappy  fate,  but  his  personal  attendants 
insisted  so  strongly  on  his  flight  that,  yielding  to  their 
remonstrances,  he  let  himself  be  placed  on  a  litter,  and  in 
this  helpless  state,  only  attended  by  a  few  hundred  men, 
the  Swedish  king  was  borne  along  over  the  Russian  frontier 
into  Turkey. 

Defeat  creates  ne^<  troubles. — The  defiv.t  at  Pullnva.  which 
took  place  on  the  27th  of  June,  1709,  was  a  signal  to  all  the 
enemies  of  Charles  to  take  up  arms  against  Ins  humbled  king- 
dom. A  new  league  was  formed  between  1'Yederick  of  Den- 
mark and  Augustus  of  Saxony,  who  soon  found  themselves 
backed  by  the  power  of  Prussia  and  Russia ;  and  before  the 
close  of  1709  Sweden  was  attacked  by  their  armies  on  all  her 
frontiers.  The  only  man  who  at  that  moment  showed  both  the 
wish  and  the  skill  to  defend  his  country  was  General  Magnus 
Stcnbock,  who  had  gone  to  the  Ukraine  with  the  king,  but  in 
consequence  of  ill-health  had  returned  to  Sweden,  where  he 
held  the  post  of  Governor  of  Skaania.  ]'y  his  indefatigable 
activity  and  energy  he  contrived  to  gather  together  and  drill 
15,000  young  peasant  lads,  who,  although  badly  armed  and 


SWEDEN  FROM  1697  TO  1771. 


wearing  only  tattered  sheepskin  coats  or  coarse  woollen  jackets, 
proved  themselves,  under  his  training,  to  be  more  than  equal  to 
the  well-equipped  and  experienced  regiments  which  Frede- 
rick IV.  threw  into  Skaania.  After  a  few  encounters  with  the 
Danish  army,  these  peasant  lads,  who  were  nicknamed  the 
"  Wooden  Shoes,"  learnt  the  art  of  war  so  well  that  they  were 
able  to  rout  the  enemy,  only  half  of  whose  troops  escaped  in  a 
pitiable  condition  to  their  ships ;  and  since  that  beating  by  the 
"  Wooden  Shoes  "  the  Danes  have  never  invaded  Sweden.  On 
the  Russian  frontier  the  fortune  of  the  Swedes  was  not  equally 
good,  for,  besides  losing  Livonia  and  Esthonia,  they  had  to  give 
up  to  Russia  a  large  tract  of  land  in  the  ancient  Swedish  duchy 
of  Finland. 

Charles  plots  and  makes  his  escape. — While  these  events  were 
going  on  in  his  own  dominions,  Charles  XII.  was  plotting  at 
Bender  to  bring  on  a  war  between  Turkey  and  Russia,  and  at 
length  by  the  help  of  his  crafty  agent,  Poniatovsky,  who  had 
gained  great  personal  influence  over  the  sultan,  Achmed  III., 
differences  were  excited  between  these  powers,  and  a  Turkish 
army  was  sent  against  the  czar.  Peter  in  his  encounters  with 
the  Grand  Vizier,  Baldatdschi  Mehemed,  more  than  once  nar- 
rowly escaped  the  fate  that  had  befallen  Charles,  for  like  him 
he  had  allowed  himself  to  be  drawn  on  by  promises  of  help 
from  traitors,  who  failed  him  at  the  last  moment ;  and  on 
the  banks  of  the  river  Pruth  he  was  so  completely  shut  in  by 
the  enemy's  superior  numbers  that  all  attempts  at  breaking 
through  their  ranks  proved  useless.  The  czar  had  given  him- 
self up  to  despair,  and  saw  no  possible  means  of  escape,  when 
he  was  saved  by  the  clover  device  of  his  brave  wife,  Katherine, 
who,  trusting  to  the  avarice  of  the  Grand  Vizier,  sent  him  as  a 
gift  all  her  jewels  and  all  the  gold  and  silver  she  could  collect 
in  the  Russian  camp,  promising  at  the  same  time  in  a  flattering 
letter  to  present  him  with  still  more  costly  gifts  on  her  and  her 
husband's  return  to  St.  Petersburg.  The  effect  of  this  timely 
offering  was  to  make  the  Vizier  willing  to  conclude  a  peace,  by 
which,  on  the  surrender  of  the  little  fortress  of  Azov,  Peter  was 
allowed  to  withdraw  his  army  without  further  opposition. 
When  Charles  remonstrated  angrily  with  the  Vizier  for  letting 
his  foe  escape  at  the  moment  he  had  him  in  his  power,  the 

Z    2 


340  SCANDINA  VIA  Ar  HIS  TOR  Y. 

Turk  coolly  replied,  that  "  all  princes  were  not  able  to  be  away 
from  their  own  states." 

The  position  of  the  Swedish  king  now  became  extremely 
unpleasant.  The  sultan  wished  to  be  rid  of  him,  and  gave 
him  large  sums  of  money  to  pay  his  debts  and  make  the 
necessary  preparations  to  leave,  but  Charles  spent  the  money 
in  other  ways,  and  asked  for  more.  Then  the  sultan  ordered 
his  arrest;  but  when  the  Turkish  officers  attempted  to  take 
him  he  locked  the  doors  of  his  house  at  Varnitz,  and,  shutting 
himself  in  with  a  few  hundred  men,  he  defended  himself 
against  a  whole  army.  Many  Turks  were  shot  down  in  the 
affray,  but  after  his  house  had  been  set  on  fire  he  was  seized 
while  escaping  from  the  flames,  and  after  a  desperate  struggle, 
when  he  fell  owing  to  his  spurs  having  become  entangled,  he 
was  overpowered  and  carried  by  main  force  to  a  village  near 
Adrianople,  called  Demotika.  Here  he  remained  for  a  long 
time  in  sullen  inactivity,  closely  guarded  by  the  Turkish  Jani- 
zaries, who  called  him,  from  his  obstinacy,  "  Demiirbasch  "- 
the  Iron  Head.  For  ten  months  he  remained  shut  up,  and 
generally  in  bed  on  pretence  that  he  was  dangerously  ill,  but 
when  he  found  that  he  would  obtain  no  further  help  from 
Turkey  he  resolved  upon  making  his  escape.  Accompanied 
only  by  two  persons,  he  succeeded  in  the  incredibly  short  time 
of  fourteen  clays  in  riding  from  Adrianople  through  Hungary, 
Austria,  and  Germany  to  the  Swedish  port  of  Stralsund  in 
Pomerania,  before  whose  gates  he  presented  himself  on  the 
7th  of  November,  under  the  name  of  Captain  Peder  Frisch. 
The  guard  did  not  at  first  recognize  the  king,  for  he  looked 
haggar  1  and  worn  in  face  and  shabby  and  dirty  in  person, 
never  having  changed  his  clothes,  and  scarcely  having  left  the 
saddle  night  or  day  since  he  made  his  escape,  excepting  to 
exchange  one  wearied  horse  for  another  and  fresher  animal. 

Charles  at  home. — While  Charles  had  been  shut  up  in  a 
Turkish  prison  engaged  in  frivolous  disputes  with  his  guards, 
his  enemies  in  the  North  had  been  dismembering  his  kingdom  ; 
Russia  striving  to  secure  the  whole  of  Swedish  Pomerania, 
while  George  I.  of  England  was  master  of  the  townships  of 
Bremen  and  Verden,  which  the  Danes  had  sold  to  him  as  soon 
as  they  had  seized  those  districts  by  force  of  arms  from  Sweden. 


SWEDEN  FROM  1697   TO  1771.  341 

A  Danish  fleet  under  the  brave  Tordenskjold  was  at  the  same 
time  harassing  the  Swedish  coasts,  while  an  allied  army  of  Rus- 
sians, Saxons,  and  Danes  was  investing  Stralsund.  Charles 
on  his  return  refused  to  confirm  the  surrender  of  Bremen  and 
Verden,  and,  taking  the  command  of  the  garrison  at  Stralsund, 
he  defended  the  place  till  the  walls  were  blown  up  and  the 
outworks  reduced  to  ashes ;  then,  going  on  board  a  small  yacht, 
he  crossed  the  Baltic,  and  landed  safely  in  Skaania,  although 
Tordenskjold  was  scouring  the  seas  to  prevent  his  passage. 

The  king  now  took  up  his  abode  at  Lund,  either  because  he 
wished  to  be  near  the  scene  of  war,  or  because  he  did  not  like 
to  return  to  his  capital  till  he  had  retrieved  his  bad  fortune. 
His  presence  in  his  own  country  forced  the  nobles  to  refrain 
from  further  attempts  to  secure  peace,  and  gave  new  courage 
to  the  lower  classes,  who,  in  their  love  and  devotion  to  their 
idol  king,  were  ready  to  risk  their  all  and  follow  him  into  new 
wars.  But  men  fit  for  service  were  scarce  in  the  land,  and 
there  was  no  money  left ;  and  in  this  dilemma  Charles  had  to 
take  lads  of  fifteen  into  the  ranks,  while  his  minister,  Gortz,  who 
was  hated  by  the  nobles  for  his  indifference  to  their  interests, 
contrived  to  raise  funds  by  coining  copper  pieces,  and  selling 
to  foreigners  all  the  silver  taken  from  the  royal  mines.  During 
the  severe  winter  of  1716,  when  the  Sound  was  frozen  over, 
Charles  determined  to  carry  an  army  over  the  ice  into  Sjselland 
and  to  invade  the  Danish  islands  :  but  at  the  moment  when 
everything  was  ready  for  this  hazardous  adventure  a  thaw  set 
in,  and  thus  Denmark  escaped  the  threatened  invasion.  He 
then  directed  his  attacks  against  Norway,  and  advanced  on 
Christiania ;  but  meeting  with  more  opposition  than  he  had  ex- 
pected, he  fell  back  and  laid  siege  to  the  fortress  of  Frederik- 
sten  near  Frederikshald.  No  better  success  awaited  him  there, 
for  the  citizens,  under  the  guidance  of  the  brothers  Peeler  and 
Hans  Kolbjornsson,  set  fire  to  their  own  town,  and  thus  drove 
the  Swedes  out  of  their  quarters,  and  at  length  forced  them  to 
give  up  the  assault.  Strangely  enough,  it  was  owing  to  the 
warning  given  of  the  approach  of  the  Swedes  by  Anna  Kolb- 
jornsdatter,  a  member  of  the  same  family  as  the  rescuers  of 
Frederikshald,  that  Charles's  plans  of  surprising  Christiania 
had  been  defeated  in  the  first  instance  ;  for  this  woman,  the 


342  SCANDINA  VI AX  HISTOR  Y. 

wife  of  the  pastor  of  Norderhoug,  went  by  night  through 
difficult  forest  paths  to  warn  the  nearest  Norwegian  guard  of 
the  danger  threatening  them. 

A  shot  strikes  Charles  dcnvn. — At  this  moment  it  seemed  as 
if  a  thoroughly  new  character  was  about  to  be  given  to  the 
war ;  for  Peter  the  Great,  being  discontented  with  his  allies 
and  the  share  of  the  Baltic  lands  which  he  had  gained  for 
himself,  showed  great  willingness  to  treat  with  Sweden.  Charles, 
however,  left  everything  in  the  hands  of  his  favourite,  Gortz, 
who  had  succeeded  in  forming  an  alliance  with  the  all- 
powerful  Alberoni,  minister  of  Spain ;  and  while  he  was  pre- 
paring to  lay  siege  to  Frederikshald  with  an  army  of  30,000 
young  soldiers,  the  czar  and  Gortz  were  planning  in  Aaland 
the  terms  of  a  treaty  between  Sweden  and  Russia  against  the 
other  northern  powers.  Although  nothing  certain  was  known 
abroad  in  regard  to  these  plans,  the  meeting  in  Aaland  was 
exciting  much  uneasiness  in  the  North,  when  the  sudden  death 
of  King  Charles  changed  the  current  of  events,  and  created  at 
once  a  new  epoch  in  the  history  of  Sweden. 

All  that  is  known  of  the  manner  in  which  Charles  XII.  met 
his  death  is,  that  on  the  morning  of  December  n,  1718,  while 
he  was  leaning  over  the  side  of  a  breastwork  and  giving  orders 
to  the  men  in  the  trenches  before  the  fortress  of  Frederikshald, 
he  was  struck  by  a  ball,  which,  entering  one  side  of  his  head, 
passed  out  through  the  opposite  temple.  The  few  officers  who 
were  near  him  reported  afterwards  that  they  had  noticed  him 
stagger,  and  had  seen  his  head  sink  on  his  breast,  but  that 
before  they  could  raise  him  up  he  had  breathed  bis  last  with- 
out uttering  a  sound.1  Thus  suddenly  the  bravest  and  most 
renowned  of  the  Vasa  line  was  cut  down  in  the  midst  of  his 
own  people  at  the  early  age  of  thirty-six;  and  with  him 
perished  the  military  glory  and  greatness  of  Sweden,  as  well 
as  the  absolute  and  personal  influence  of  the  Swedish  kings. 
His  memory  is  cherished  among  the  Swedes  to  the  present  day 


SWEDEN  FROM  1697   TO  1771.  343 


as  that  of  the  best  loved  of  their  rulers,  and  his  reign  is  looked 
back  to  with  pride  as  "  Karolinska  tiden" — Karl's  time.  The 
love  of  the  people  for  this  king  was  not  won  so  much  by  his 
valour  and  military  renown  as  by  the  fortitude,  cheerfulness, 
and  sobriety  with  which  he  went  through  the  dangers  and 
excitements  of  war,  and  shared  in  all  the  experiences  of  his 
soldiers.  The  moderation  with  which  he  exercised  his  abso- 
lute power,  his  simple  habits,  his  respect  for  religion,  his, 
love  for  national  customs,  the  many  useful  changes  which  he 
effected  in  the  public  administration  of  the  laws  and  in  the 
government  offices,  and  the  moral  purity  of  his  life  in  an  age 
of  great  corruption,  all  combined  to  win  the  respect  and  ad- 
miration of  his  people.  Charles's  remains  were  buried  in  the 
Riddarholmkirka,  where  his  mortuary  chapel,  with  its  moulder- 
ing trophies,  stands  immediately  opposite  the  grave  of  his  great 
predecessor  and  model  in  war,  Gustavus-  Adolphus. 


PART  III. 

SWEDEN     UNDER     A     GERMAN     PRINCE. 

Sweden  after  Charles's  death. — Charles  XII.  left  no  will,  and 
had  made  no  settlement  in  regard  to  the  succession,  and  hence 
at  his  death  it  became  a  question  whether  the  crown  should 
devolve  upon  his  sister,  Ulrika,  or  his  nephew,  Charles  Frede- 
rick of  Holstein-Gottorp,  the  son  of  his  elder  sister,  Hedvig 
Sofia,  who,  in  the  absence  of  direct  heirs,  were  the  nearest  in 
the  line  of  succession.  The  claims  of  both  were  open  to  doubt, 
but  the  Princess  Ulrika  secured  her  own  election  by  inducing 
the  Council  of  State  to  do  homage  to  her  immediately  on  the 
death  of  her  brother,  on  her  promising  to  renounce  absolute 
authority  and  to  rule  by  the  will  of  the  diet.  The  nobles,  glad 
of  the  opportunity  to  recover  their  lost  influence,  drew  up  a 
strict  compact,  which  left  little  or  no  power  to  the  crown,  and 
secured  the  majority  of  the  votes  in  the  diet  to  their  own  order 
in  the  state.  The  queen,  although  a  proud  woman  of  im- 


344  SC AND  IN  A  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 

patient  and  self-willed  disposition,  agreed  to  all  the  terms 
proposed  for  her  acceptance ;  and  as  soon  as  she  could,  she 
drove  her  nephew,  Charles  Frederick  of  Holstein,  out  of 
Sweden,  and  forced  him  to  seek  safety  at  the  court  of  the  czar, 
Peter,  who,  however,  received  him  well,  and  gave  him  his 
daughter  the  Grand  Duchess  Anna  in  marriage. 

In  the  meanwhile  Ulrika's  husband,  Prince  Frederick  of 
Hesse,  had  taken  the  chief  command  of  the  army  on  the  death 
of  the  king,  and,  having  withdrawn  all  the  troops  from  Nor- 
way, he  prepared  to  negotiate  terms  of  peace  with  the  allies. 
His  next  step  was  to  arrest  Gortz,  who  was  equally  hateful  to 
him  and  to  the  nobles.  The  fallen  minister  was  seized  while 
returning  from  Aaland  and  carried  to  Stockholm,  where  he 
was  brought  before  a  military  commission,  composed  of  his 
enemies,  and,  contrary  to  the  provisions  of  the  laws,  was  con- 
demned to  death  on  the  sole  authority  of  the  queen,  without 
being  allowed  to  defend  himself  from  the  charges  of  treason 
advanced  against  him. 

Frederick  /.,  1720-1750. — Queen  Ulrika,  with  the  consent 
of  the  diet  of  1720,  resigned  the  supreme  power  into  the 
hands  of  her  husband,  who  thenceforth,  till  his  death  in  1750, 
ruled  Sweden  under  the  title  of  Frederick  I.  His  long  reign 
was  a  period  of  humiliation,  during  which  Sweden  had  to 
make  peace  on  the  most  disadvantageous  terms  with  her 
enemies,  and  to  give  up  all  the  great  conquests  which  she  had 
won  at  the  price  of  so  much  blood.  By  the  peace  of  Nystad 
in  1721,  Russia  obtained  Ingermanland,  Esthonia,  Livonia, 
and  East  Karelia  for  two  million  rix  dollars,  which  the  c/.ar 
paid  to  the  Swedish  crown,  and  which  proved  a  very  poor 
return  for  the  lives  and  money  sacrificed  in  the  conquest  and 
defence  of  these  lands  during  so  many  ages.  Finland  was 
reduced  to  a  desert,  and  Sweden  had  now  sunk  so  low  that, 
from  being  the  leading  power  in  the  north,  she  was  unable  to 
protect  her  own  shores. 

The  death  of  Charles  XII.  proved  an  important  turning- 
point  in  the  history  of  Sweden.  Old  times  were  gone,  and 
little  more  than  the  memory  of  past  conquests  and  of  glorious 
victories  was  now  left  to  the  Swedes  ;  while  in  the  new  era 
that  was  opening  before  them  there  was  nothing  in  the  national 


SWEDEN  FROA1  1697  TO  1771.  345 

history  of  the  monarchy  to  rouse  the  energies  or  awaken  the 
sympathies  of  the  people.  The  internal  arrangements,  form, 
and  spirit  of  the  government  were  completely  re-modelled  at 
the  diet  of  1720,  when  the  nobles  obtained  from  King  Frede- 
rick, as  the  price  of  their  allegiance,  a  konunga  forsakran,  or 
royal  assurance,  by  which  he  agreed  to  the  withdrawal  of 
absolute  power  from  the  crown.  By  the  new  form  of  govern- 
ment settled  in  1720  all  power  passed  from  the  hands  of  the 
king  to  that  of  the  nobles,  who  shut  out  the  lower  orders  from 
any  share  in  the  administration  of  public  affairs.  Parties  were 
soon  formed  amongst  the  nobles,  whose  struggles  to  supplant 
one  another  in  the  diets  of  the  Estates  kept  the  country  in  a 
state  of  constant  disquiet.  Some  good  was,  however,  done  in 
this  reign,  for  trade  was  encouraged,  skilful  workmen  were 
brought  to  the  country,  and  many  plants,  hitherto  unknown  to 
the  Swedes,  amongst  which  the  most  important  was  the  potato, 
were  introduced.  Under  Horn,  the  code  of  laws  which  had 
been  begun  in  the  time  of  Charles  XI.  was  completed,  and 
formally  approved  in  the  diet  of  1734. 

The  Hats  and  Caps.1 — In  1738  the  Hats  of  Horn  had  to  give 
way  to  the  Caps  •©?  Count  Gyllenborg,  who,  renouncing  the 
more  cautious  policy  of  the  former  minister,  entered  into  an 
alliance  with  France  against  Russia.  The  French  government, 
which  wanted  to  secure  the  aid  of  Sweden,  had  helped  to  fo- 
ment the  national  hatred  of  the  people  against  the  Russians, 
which  had  been  strongly  excited  by  the  murder  of  Major 
Malcolm  Sinclair  while  on  his  way  from  a  mission  to  Turkey, 
entrusted  to  him  by  the  king  of  Sweden,  and  who  was 
believed  to  have  been  killed  by  orders  of  the  czar.  Without 
considering  the  unprotected  state  of  the  kingdom,  and  in- 
fluenced only  by  national  hatred,  the  Swedes  rushed  hastily 
into  a  war  with  Russia  in  1741.  The  loss  of  Finland,  a  great 
defeat  at  Vilmanstrand,  and  the  capitulation  of  the  Swedish 
army  to  the  Russians  at  Helsingsfors,  only  made  the  nation 
more  fierce  against  their  powerful  foes ;  and  nothing  but  the 
condemnation  and  execution  of  the  two  chief  commanders, 

1  These  parties  were  known  in  Swedish  as  Ilattar  "the  hats,"  and 
Nattmosscr  "the  nightcaps." 


346  SCANDLVA  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 

Generals  Levenhaupt  and  Buddenbrock,  could  satisfy  the  rage 
of  the  Swedish  people.  But  in  spite  of  the  national  wish  for 
vengeance,  Sweden  was  forced  to  sue  for  peace,  and  by  the 
treaty  of  Abo  in'  1743  she  had  to  resign  eastern  Finland  to 
Russia,  and  even  to  submit  to  the  degradation  of  begging  for 
help  from  the  czar  against  Denmark,  and  to  receive  10,000 
Russians  as  protectors  within  her  frontiers.  While  these 
disastrous  events  were  passing,  King  Frederick  gave  himself 
up  to  his  amusements,  and  showed  no  concern  for  the  humilia- 
ting position  in  which  he  and  his  kingdom  were  placed.  As 
he  was  childless,  the  question  of  the  succession  had  to  be  con- 
sidered. The  party  of  the  Hats  favoured  the  claims  of  the 
young  Karl  Peter  Ulrich,  son  of  the  Holstein-Gottorp  prince, 
Karl  Frederick  ;  but  when  they  found  that  he  had  been  chosen 
to  succeed  his  mother's  sister,  the  Empress  Elizabeth,  on  the 
throne  of  Russia,  they  by  her  wish  gave  their  votes  in  favour  of 
another  Holstein-Gottorp  prince,  Adolf  Frederick.  The  diet 
of  1743  confirmed  the  election  of  Adolf  Frederick,  and  on 
the  death,  in  1750,  of  the  easy-tempered,  pleasure-loving  king 
Frederick  I.,  he  ascended  the  throne  of  Sweden. 

Humiliation  of  King  and  Queen. — The  twenty  years  during 
which  Adolf  Frederick  reigned  over  the  Swedish  people,  from 
1751  to  1771,  were  marked  by  the  increasing  decline  of  the 
kingdom.  The  king  was  a  mere  puppet  in  the  hands  of  the 
council  and  the  nobles,  and  the  regal  power  existed  only  in 
name.  An  attempt  by  Counts  Horn  and  IJrahe  in  1756  to  give 
more  weight  to  the  authority  of  the  crown  brought  the  leaders 
to  the  scaffold,  and  exposed  the  king  and  his  queen,  Louisa 
Ulrika  of  Prussia,  to  still  further  humiliations.  The  council 
drew  Sweden  into  the  Seven  Years'  War  which  was  being 
carried  on  against  Frederick  II.  of  Prussia,  but  so  feeble  had 
been  the  efforts  of  the  Swedish  armies,  that  the  Prussian  king 
had  some  grounds  for  his  sarcastic  observation  \\hen  peace  was 
concluded  at  Hamburg  in  1762,  "that  he  was  not  aware  he 
had  been  at  war  with  Sweden."  The  Hats,  who  were  in  office 
at  the  time  of  this  inglorious  war  and  mortifying  peace,  became 
so  unpopular  in  Sweden  that  they  IKK!  to  give  up  their  power 
in  favour  of  the  Caps,  but  the  change  of  ministers  brought  no 
amendment  to  the  state  of  public  affairs,  although  by  the  intro- 


SWEDEN  FROM  1697  TO  1771.  347 

duction  of  freedom  of  the  press  the  discontented  party  had  a 
better  opportunity  of  making  their  complaints  heard.  The 
weak  but  well-meaning  king,  after  making  an  attempt  to  lay 
down  the  crown,  which  the  nobles  would  not  allow,  died  in 
1771,  at  the  moment  when  party  differences  were  the  strongest, 
«nd  the  con -try  seemed  on  the  eve  of  a  revolution. 


CHAPTER  XXV. 

SWEDEN    FROM    177!    TO    1872. 

Gustavus  III.  first  of  the  native-born  line  of  IIolstein-Gottorp — His  edu- 
cation—His  character — Qualities  and  failings — His  success  in  recovering 
nearly  absolute  power  for  the  crown — His  early  efforts  for  his  country 
— His  vanity — Love  of  French  manners— Expensive  travels — Folly  in 
going  to  war  with  Russia — The  result— Mutiny  of  Anjala — The  king's 
success  in  securing  his  own  authority — Result  of  war — Lack  of  money  — 
Discontent  of  the  nation — Conspiracy — Gustavus  assassinated  at  a  mas- 
querade— Ankerstrom — His  escape — The  king's  sufferings  and  death — 
His  fortitude — The  Regency  — Duke  Charles — His  policy — Hisfavourites 
— The  young  king's  betrothal  interrupted — His  marriage — His  rule  with- 
out Regency — His  character — His  religious  fancies — Aversion  to  Napo- 
leon, "  the  Great  Beast  " — Gustavus  IV.  joins  coalition  against  France — 
French  generals  in  Pomerania — The  Great  Powers  make  peace  with 
Napoleon — War  in  Finland — War  with  Denmark  feebly  maintained- 
English  auxiliaries  leave  without  helping  the  Swedes — Napoleon's  con- 
tingent equally  inactive  in  Denmark — Conspiracy  to  force  Gustavus  IV. 
to  abdicate — Driven  out  of  Sweden — His  death — Diet  deliberates — Gives 
the  crown  to  Duke  Charles — A  successor  chosen,  who  dies — Napoleon 
consulted  as  to  a  second  successor  to  childless  Charles  XIII. — Berna- 
dotte,  General  and  Marshal  of  France,  at  length  allowed  to  accept  title 
of  heir  apparent — Goes  to  Sweden — Takes  the  command  of  affairs — 
Depressed  condition  of  Sweden — Previous  loss  of  Finland  and  Aalaml 
— Bernadotte  joins  Russia  against  France— Rewarded  l>y  annexation  of 
Norway — Pays  off  national  debt — Bernadotte  succeeds  as  Charles  XIV. 
— His  reign — His  merits  and  demerits — The  result  of  his  rule — Condition 
of  prosperity  in  Sweden  —  Oscar  I. — His  character — Early  measures- 
Policy —  Helps  the  Danes— Encourages  Scandinavian  unity — State  of 
Norway — Charles  XV.  continues  the  same  policy — Settlement  of 
government  for  joint  kingdoms — Death — Succession  of  present  king, 
Oscar  II. 

PART   1. 
THE     SWEDISH     LINE     OF     KINGS. 

Gustarus  (Gustaf)  III.,  1771-1792. — WITH  Gustavus  III., 
son  of  the  late  king  Adolphus  Frederick  of  Holstein-Gottorp, 


SWEDEN  FROM  1771   TO  1872.  349 

a  native  born  royal  dynasty  was  established  in  Sweden.  This 
young  king,  who  had  been  carefully  brought  up  under  the 
guidance  of  his  tutor,  Tessin,  was  handsome  in  person  and 
graceful  in  his  movements  :  accomplished,  eloquent,  possessed 
of  great  imaginative  powers,  impressed  with  exaggerated  ideas 
of  the  importance  of  his  rank,  and  moved  by  a  strong  desire 
to  emulate  the  renown  of  his  predecessors  and  restore  Sweden 
to  its  former  place  in  European  history.  Gustavus  was  in  Paris 
when  the  tidings  of  his  father's  death  reached  him,  and,  hasten- 
ing back  to  Stockholm,  he  was  crowned  king  with  much  dis- 
play. At  that  time  he  was  twenty-five  years  of  age,  and  his 
first  thought  was  how  to  free  himself  from  the  thraldom  in 
which  he  was  held  by  the  nobles.  He  found  that  a  large  party 
in  the  state  were  willing  to  help  him  in  this  design  ;  in  further- 
ance of  which  one  of  his  chief  adherents,  Captain  Hellichius, 
proposed  to  get  up  a  mock  revolt  to  give  him  the  opportunity 
of  collecting  a  large  body  of  troops.  The  scheme  succeeded, 
and  by  help  of  the  guard,  who  had  been  gained  over  to  his 
side,  Gustavus  arrested  the  council,  called  together  the  troops, 
and  laid  before  the  diet  a  MW  form  of  administration,  which 
the  members  were  forced  to  sign,  as  the  burghers  of  Stockholm 
had  declared  in  his  favour,  and  they  were  at  the  mercy  of  the 
soldiers.  By  these  bold  steps  Gustavus  effected,  without 
bloodshed,  a  complete  revolution  in  the  state,  and  secured  for 
himself  the  administrative  power,  while  he  left  to  the  diet  the 
right  of  approving  or  rejecting  declarations  of  war,  with  the 
control  of  the  taxes,  and  of  the  modes  of  administering  the 
laws.  The  king  used  his  powers  at  first  with  moderation, 
while  he  liberally  rewarded  all  his  supporters,  more  espe- 
cially Hellichius,  who  was  made  a  count  under  the  title  of 
Gustavskjold. 

Gustavus  laboured  diligently  during  the  first  ten  years  of  his 
reign  to  improve  the  army  and  navy,  and  he  made  himself 
generally  popular  by  the  ease  of  his  manners,  and  the  readiness 
he  showed  to  receive  and  listen  to  the  personal  appeals  of  his 
poorest  subjects.  He,  moreover,  effected  some  useful  changes 
in  the  government,  but  his  vanity  and  love  of  amusement 
marred  all  his  good  qualities,  while  his  aping  of  French 
manners  and  fashions,  and  the  favour  he  showed  to  foreign 


350  SCANDINA  VI AN  II1STOR  Y. 


actors,  singers,  and  dancers,  had  a  bad  effect  on  public  morals, 
and  threatened  to  destroy  the  national  simplicity  of  the  Swedes. 
French  became  in  this  reign  the  language  of  the  court  and 
of  society,  theatres  and  an  opera-house  were  opened  at  Stock- 
holm, where  only  French  pieces  were  given ;  and  in  all  the 
concerns  of  life  Gustavus  tried  to  make  himself  conspicuous 
by  the  adoption  of  Parisian  manners  and  by  his  elegance  and 
polished  taste.  But  his  costly  foreign  travels,  during  which  he 
squandered  large  sums  of  money  on  objects  of  art,  while  his 
subjects  at  home  were  suffering  from  famine,  murrain,  and 
distress  of  all  kinds,  and  his  extravagance  in  raising  showy 
regiments  of  horse  guards  merely  for  his  own  gratification, 
excited  much  ill-will  amongst  his  subjects. 

Gustavus's  folly  in  declaring  war  against  Russia  in  1788 
ended  in  extreme  mortification  to  himself,  for  although  at  the 
outset  the  absence  of  the  Russian  army,  which  was  engaged  in 
war  with  Turkey,  enabled  the  Swedish  king,  as  he  had  anti- 
cipated, to  advance  on  St.  Petersburg  without  being  inter- 
cepted in  his  march,  the  empress,  Katherine  II.,  had  tin- 
address  to  thwart  all  his  plans.  She  succeeded  in  winning 
over  a  number  of  disaffected  Swedish  officers,  who,  while  en- 
camped at  Anjala,  a  little  town  on  the  Swedish  frontier  of 
Finland,  formed  a  plot  to  oppose  the  king's  orders  for  their 
advance  upon  Russia,  declaring  that  they  considered  the  war 
illegal,  since  it  had  been  undertaken  without  the  consent  of  the 
Estates.  At  the  same  time,  the  empress  induced  Denmark  to 
form  an  alliance  with  Russia,  and  to  send  an  army  into  southern 
Sweden,  while  Gustavus  was  in  the  north  of  his  kingdom  with 
all  the  troops  he  could  muster.  When  he  received  the  declara- 
tion of  war  from  Denmark,  he  exclaimed,  "  I  am  betrayed  ; '' 
and,  leaving  Finland,  he  hastened  into  Dalekarliaand  appealed 
in  person  to  the  loyalty  of  the  Dalesmen,  who  rose  in  a  body 
and  followed  him  to  Goteborg,  which  was  being  besieged  by  a 
Danish  army.  The  intervention  of  the  Prussian  and  English 
envoys  forced  the  Danes,  however,  to  withdraw  from  the 
Swedish  territories,  and  Gustavus  was  relieved  from  a  threaten- 
ing danger. 

Gustavus  gains  absolute  power. — The  mutiny  of  the  officers 
in  Finland  had  excited  great  indignation  in  the  country  against 


SWEDEN  FROM  1771   TO  1872.  351 

the  nobles,  to  which  class  they  all  belonged;  and  the  king 
availed  himself  of  the  general  sympathy  shown  him  to  appeal 
to  the  diet ;  and  by  means  of  his  personal  eloquence  and  the 
efforts  of  his  friends,  he  obtained  so  great  an  increase  of  power 
allowed  him  by  an  act  known  as  the  Safety  measure,  that  he 
became  almost  absolute.  The  conspirators  were  mildly  dealt 
with,  and  only  their  leader,  Colonel  Hestesko,  suffered  death 
for  his  treason.  In  the  meanwhile  the  empress  had  been  busied 
in  fitting  out  a  powerful  fleet  and  armies  to  carry  on  the  war 
against  Sweden ;  and  although  King  Gustavus  could  boast  of 
one  great  victory  at  sea,  in  which  the  enemy  lost  55  ships  and 
12,000  men,  he  had  himself  in  a  previous  engagement  lost 
many  of  his  best  men-of-war  and  7,000  men  ;  and  seeing  how 
impossible  it  would  be  to  carry  on  the  war  against  such  a  power 
as  Russia,  he  was  glad  to  make  peace  in  1790,  and  resume  the 
position  which  he  had  occupied  before  the  war. 

Gustavus  assassinated. — Gustavus  next  turned  his  thoughts 
to  the  useless  project  of  trying  to  restore  the  Bourbon  family 
to  the  throne  of  France,  and  wished  to  send  a  fleet  to  attack 
the  French  coast,  while  he  even  conceived  the  flattering  notion 
that  he  might  act  as  commander-in-chief  of  the  Prussian  and 
Austrian  armies,  which  were  to  attempt  to  crush  the  revolu- 
tionary government  of  the  French  people.  To  carry  out  these 
grand  schemes  money  was  needed,  but  when  he  called  a  diet 
to  consult  with  the  Estates  in  regard  to  the  manner  in  which 
the  necessary  supplies  were  to  be  obtained,  they  refused 
even  to  consider  the  question.  His  incessant  demands  for 
money,  and  his  wastefulness  while  the  country  was  nearly 
crushed  with  debt  raised  much  dissatisfaction,  and  a  con- 
spiracy was  formed  against  him  amongst  the  highest  nobles  of 
the  kingdom.  The  leaders  in  the  plot  were  the  Counts  Rib- 
bing, Horn,  Pechlin,  and  Bjelke ;  but  the  person  selected  to 
carry  out  their  design  of  assassinating  the  king  was  a  man  of 
inferior  rank,  called  Ankerstrom,  possessed  of  a  daring  and 
vindictive  temper,  who  had  formerly  served  in  the  army,  and 
who  hated  Gustavus  for  private  reasons.  On  the  night  of 
March  16,  1792,  at  a  masquerade  held  in  the  Opera  House, 
Ankerstrom  approached  the  king  and  discharged  a  pistol  into 
his  side,  and  then  disappeared  in  the  crowd,  while  the  re- 


352  -SCAXDINA  VIAN  HISTOR  Y. 

mainder  of  the  conspirators,  disguised  in  black  masks  and 
cloaks,  rushed  in  a  body  towards  the  doors  of  the  hall. 
Gustavus  called  out  as  the  shot  struck  him,  "  I  am  wounded  ; 
seize  the  traitor  ;"  but  when  his  attendants  on  recognizing  his 
voice  pressed  around  him,  he  declared  that  he  did  not  think 
he  had  been  hurt.  The  result  proved,  however,  that  he  had 
been  fatally  wounded,  and  after  suffering  extreme  agony  for 
thirteen  days  in  consequence  of  the  jagged  and  rough  surfaces 
of  the  broken  bits  of  lead  with  which  the  pistol  had  been  charged, 
he  died  on  291)1  of  March,  1792,  at  the  age  of  forty-six. 

Gustavus  showed  great  fortitude  in  his  sufferings,  and  devoted 
his  last  hours  to  the  settlement  of  the  affairs  of  his  kingdom. 
Me  appointed  a  regency  for  his  only  son,  then  scarcely  fourteen 
years  old ;  and  named  his  brother,  Duke  Charles,  to  be  presi- 
dent or  chief  director  of  the  administration.  The  duke  was 
an  able,  upright  man,  but  he  had  visionary  ideas  on  many  sub- 
jects, and  had  no  confidence  in  his  own  judgment,  which  led 
him  to  intrust  all  important  matters  of  state  to  his  favourite. 
Baron  Reuterholm,  who  by  his  haughty,  overbearing  temper 
soon  drew  upon  himself  the  dislike  of  the  old  friends  of  the 
former  king.  The  regent  showed  great  indulgence  to  most 
of  the  conspirators  concerned  in  his  brother's  murder,  but 
Ankerstrom  was  made  to  expiate  his  crime  by  a  barbarous  and 
cruel  mode  of  death,  and  bore  the  infliction  of  his  sentence 
with  a.  fortitude  worthy  of  a  better  cause.  In  nearly  all  respects 
the  regent  followed  a  policy  directly  opposite  to  that  of  his 
brother,  and  he  entered  into  an  alliance  with  the  leaders  of  the 
French  republic,  assuring  them  of  his  good-will ;  while  he 
joined  the  Danish  king  in  forming  a  compact  of  armed  neu- 
trality for  the  defence  of  the  shipping  of  their  respective  king- 
doms. By  these  measures,  Sweden  gave  offence  to  Russia,  and  a 
war  between  the  two  countries  was  only  averted  for  the  time  by 
a  proposal  made  by  Baron  Reuterholm  to  the  empress,  that  the 
young  king  should  marry  her  granddaughter,  the  Grand  Duchess 
Alexandra.  Gustavus  went  to  St.  Petersburg  with  his  uncle, 
and  everything  seemed  settled  for  the  betrothal  of  the  young 
couple,  which  was  to  be  publicly  announced  at  a  court  ball. 
But  when  the  evening  appointed  for  the  ceremony  ai  rived,  and 
the  empress,  surrounded  by  her  court,  was  ready  to  receive  the 


SWEDEN  FROM  1771   TO  1-872.  353 

young  king,  he  did  not  appear,  and  after  waiting  for  him  for 
several  hours,  the  company  dispersed.  The  duke  then  had  to 
explain  to  the  imperial  family  that  his  nephew  had  refused  to 
sign  the  marriage  contract,  because  it  secured  to  the  future 
queen  the  free  exercise  of  her  own  religion,  and  allowed  her 
to  have  a  chapel  fitted  up  in  accordance  with  the  rules  of 
the  Greek  Church,  to  which  she  belonged.  The  empress  re- 
fused after  that  to  hold  any  further  communications  with  the 
young  king,  who  therefore  had  to  return  to  Sweden  without 
celebrating  his  betrothal.  He  soon  afterwards  chose  a  wife 
for  himself,  and  in  1796  was  married  with  much  state  to  the 
Princess  Frederika  of  Baden,  who  was  only  sixteen  at  the  time. 
This  princess,  who  was  celebrated  for  her  great  beauty  and 
her  sprightly  disposition,  was  a  Lutheran  like  himself,  and 
therefore  Gustavus  was  not  called  upon  in  marrying  her  to 
make  any  concessions  of  which  his  conscience  disapproved. 


PART  II. 

TROUBLES     IN     SWEDEN. 

Gustavus  IV.,  1792-1809. — The  first  act  of  Gustavus  after 
he  began  to  reign  independently  of  the  regency  was  to  dismiss 
all  who  were  known  to  be  supporters  of  the  duke,  and  to  recall 
his  father's  former  friends  and  companions.  At  first  his  people 
had  great  hopes  of  having  better  times  under  him,  for  he  was 
simple  in  his  habits,  very  averse  to  show  or  extravagance,  and 
upright  in  his  conduct ;  but  they  soon  found  that  his  pride  and 
obstinacy  led  him  to  take  steps  which  proved  most  calamitous 
to  his  kingdom.  The  main  cause  of  his  troubles  was  the 
strong  aversion  which  he  felt  towards  Napoleon,  and  his 
resolution  to  devote  all  his  energies  to  the  ruin  of  the  emperor. 
Gustavus  had  taken  up  some  strange  ideas  in  regard  to  the 
meaning  of  prophecy,  and  he  looked  upon  Buonaparte  as  the 
Great  Beast  spoken  of  in  Revelation.  At  first  the  Swedish 
king's  conduct  excited  only  ridicule,  and  was  looked  upon  as 
a  proof  of  his  religious  insanity  ;  but  when  he  joined  77ie 
Triple  CcaUtion,  formed  by  Austria,  Russia,  and  England 
against  France,  Napoleon  sent  an  army  under  his  general, 

A  A 


354  SCANDINA  VI AN  HIS  TOR  Y. 

Marshal  Brun,  to  seize  upon  Swedish  Pomerania  and  drive 
the  Swedes  out  of  this  last  of  their  German  possessions.  Soon 
afterwards  Gustavus  brought  still  greater  troubles  upon  Sweden 
itself  by  opening  his  ports  to  English  ships  without  heeding  the 
conditions  of  a  compact  which  Russia,  Prussia,  and  other  lesser 
powers  had  been  forced  to  make  with  Napoleon  at  Tilsit  in 
1807  to  keep  British  traders  out  of  foreign  markets.  As 
Gustavus  continued  in  defiance  of  all  warning  to  keep  up  an 
active  trade  with  the  English,  and  to  allow  them  to  make 
Goteborg  a  free  port  for  their  trading  ships,  Russia  declared 
war  against  Sweden,  and  the  Russian  emperor,  Alexander,  sent 
an  army  into  Finland,  which  thenceforth  became  the  chief 
theatre  of  the  war  in  1808-9.  The  Swedes,  under  Adlerkreuz, 
fought  with  desperate  valour, and  gained  several  great  victories; 
but  the  overwhelming  numbers  of  the  enemy  forced  them  to 
fall  back,  and  at  last  to  evacuate  the  whole  of  Finland. 
Gustavus,  more  interested  in  finding  passages  in  Scripture  that 
pointed,  as  he  believed,  to  the  French  emperor,  than  in  attend- 
ing to  the  welfare  of  his  people,  left  the  army  to  melt  away 
before  the  Russian  forces  ;  and  when,  by  the  treachery  of  its 
commandant,  the  fortress  of  Sveaborg,  which  was  regarded  as 
impregnable,  was  given  up  to  the  enemy,  the  fate  of  Finland 
was  decided,  and  the  whole  of  northern  Sweden  was  laid  open 
to  the  attacks  of  the  Russians. 

While  these  events  were  passing,  war  was  being  feebly  carried 
on  between  Sweden  and  Denmark  on  the  Norwegian  frontiers, 
where  the  Danish  stadtholder,  Prince  Christian  of  Augusten- 
burg,  drove  back  the  Swedes  under  their  commander  Armfeldt. 
England  sent  troops  to  help  Sweden,  and  Napoleon  threw  an 
army  under  General  liernadotte  into  Jutland,  on  pretence  of 
supporting  Denmark.  The  English  forces,  numbering  10,000 
men,  which  were  under  the  command  of  Sir  Thomas  Moore, 
returned,  however,  to  England  without  striking  a  blow,  as  soon 
as  it  was  found  that  Gustavus  wanted  to  send  them  into  Fin- 
land to  fight  against  the  Russians,  while  the  French  and 
Spaniards  in  Napoleon's  army  did  nothing  to  help  Denmark  ; 
and  after  a  year  spent  by  them  in  mutiny  and  in  pillaging  the 
Jutlanders,  disappeared  from  the  provinces  without  having  done 
any  fighting  except  among  themselves. 


SWEDEN  FROM  1771   TO  1872.  353 

Gustai'us  forced  to  abdicate. — The  unhappy  results  of  the 
Russian  war  and  the  senseless  obstinacy  of  Gustavus,  which 
nearly  brought  him  into  a  quarrel  with  his  best  ally,  England, 
excited  universal  anger  in  the  minds  of  the  Swedes  against 
their  king,  and  a  conspiracy  was  formed  to  force  him  to 
abdicate,  which  consisted  of  a  large  number  of  officers,  headed 
by  the  Generals  Acllerkreuz  and  Adlersparre.  The  object  of 
the  conspirators  was  at  first  not  merely  to  remove  the  king, 
but  to  unite  Sweden  and  Norway  under  the  rule  of  the 
Danish  stadtholder,  Prince  Christian  Augustus  of  Augusten- 
burg,  who  is  believed  to  have  been  aware  of  the  plot,  and 
to  have  given  his  sanction  to  it.  At  all  events  the  prince 
allowed  the  war  to  be  carried  on  in  a  very  inactive  manner 
against  Sweden,  and  consented  to  a  truce  with  Adlersparre, 
immediately  after  which  the  latter  hurried  to  Stockholm  to 
carry  out  his  designs.  On  the  evening  of  the  i3th  of  March, 
1809,  while  Adlersparre  was  keeping  his  troops  under  arms 
before  the  gates  of  Stockholm,  Adlerkreuz  with  six  attendants 
entered  the  king's  apartment  and  announced  to  him  that  he 
had  come  in  the  name  of  the  army  to  insist  that  the  king 
should  not  carry  out  the  design  which  he  had  in  view  of  going  to 
Skaania  to  superintend  preparations  for  further  hostilities,  since 
the  Swedes  would  not  go  on  with  these  useless  wars.  Gustavus 
on  hearing  this  drew  his  sword,  and  called  aloud  for  "  help 
against  traitors,"  but  Adlerkreuz's  men  closed  in  around  him 
and  disarmed  him.  After  an  hour's  detention  he  succeeded  in 
making  his  escape  through  a  concealed  door  in  the  wains- 
coting, and  hurried  into  the  courtyard  to  rouse  the  watch.  "  He 
was,  however,  pursued  and  carried  back  to  his  apartments,  and 
the  following  day  conveyed  under  a  strong  guard  to  the  palace 
of  Drottningholm,  where  he  was  forced  to  sign  a  deed,  renounc- 
ing the  Swedish  throne  for  himself  and  all  his  descendants. 
No  attempt  was  made  from  any  quarter  to  help  him,  and  in 
the  same  year  he  was  formally  banished  the  kingdom,  and 
forced  to  leave  the  country.  After  wandering  about  the 
Continent  and  leading  a  strange,  restless  life,  he  died  in 
obscurity  in  the  year  1837  at  St.  Gall,  in  Switzerland,  under  the 
name  of  Colonel  Gustafsson,  which  he  had  assumed  on  leaving 
Sweden. 

A  A    2 


356  SCANDIXA  VI AX  HISTOR  Y. 

PART    III. 
GREAT    CHANGES     IN     SWEDEN. 

Charles  XIII.,  1809-1818. — When  this  ne\v  revolution  had 
been  completed  without  bloodshed  or  disturbance  of  any  kind, 
the  Estates  met,  and  in  accordance  with  the  general  wishes  of 
the  nation  invited  Duke  Charles  of  Sodermanland  to  undertake 
the  administration  until  more  lasting  arrangements  could  be 
made  for  the  disposition  of  public  affairs.  In  a  diet  held  in 
1809,  Gustavus  IV.  was  declared  to  have  forfeited  the  crown, 
and  Duke  Charles  was  proclaimed  king,  after  having  agreed  to 
accept  the  charter  drawn  up  by  the  Estates,  which  gave  to  the 
sovereign  the  administrative  power,  and  left  to  the  diet,  which 
was  thenceforth  to  consist  of  the  four  orders  of  nobles,  clergy, 
burghers,  and  peasants,  the  right  of  legislation  and  the  power 
of  assessing  taxes.  At  this  diet  the  Danish  Staclthokler  of 
Norway,  Prince  Christian  Augustus  of  Augustenburg.  was 
elected  successor  to  the  childless  king,  Charles  XIII.,  as  a 
reward  for  his  friendly  conduct  towards  Sweden  during  the 
late  war  with  Denmark.  This  prince  had  carried  his  good- 
will so  far  that,  in  defiance  of  stringent  orders  from  the  Danish 
king,  Frederick  VI.,  to  advance,  he  had  abstained  from 
attacking  Vermland  when  his  road  lay  open  to  that  pro- 
vince. Peace  was  concluded  between  Sweden  and  Denmark 
;it  the  close  of  1809,  when  the  Augustenburg  prince  went  to 
Stockholm,  and,  under  the  name  of  Charles  Augustus,  was 
received  by  the  people  as  their  future  king.  His  sudden  death 
at  s.  review  near  Helsingborg  in  the  spring  of  the  following 
year  excited  a  very  strong  feeling  among  the  citizens  of  Stock- 
holm, to  whom  he  had  greatly  endeared  himself,  and,  under 
the  idea  that  lie  had  been  poisoned,  a  great  disturbance  broke 
out  on  the  day  of  his  funeral.  The  suspicion  of  the  populace 
was  chiclly  directed  against  the  old.  rich,  and  proud  Count 
Axel  Fersen,  who  was  much  disliked  for  the  haughtiness  of  his 
manners;  and  in  their  fury  they  literally  tore  him  to  pieces, 
and  could  scarcely  be  kept  from  treating  the  prince's  medical 
attendants  with  equal  cruelty. 

After  the  death  of  Charles  Augustus,  the  government  pro- 


SWEDEN  FROM  1771   TO  1872.  357 

posed  to  take  his  brother  as  successor  to  the  throne,  and  sent 
the  young  Baron  Morner  to  Paris  to  inform  Napoleon  of  their 
purpose.  This  young  man,  however,  like  many  others  of  his 
rank,  had  a  great  wish  to  see  his  native  country  brought  more 
closely  into  connection  with  France,  and,  thinking  to  please 
the  emperor,  he  proposed  that  one  of  his  French  generals 
should  be  chosen  king  of  Sweden.  Napoleon  appeared  at 
first  to  be  gratified  by  this  proposal,  but  when  Baron  Morner 
suggested  Jean  Bernadotte  (Prince  de  Ponte  Corvo)  as  the 
best  fitted  for  the  dignity,  and,  after  receiving  the  consent  of 
the  diet,  begged  the  emperor  to  sanction  their  choice,  diffi- 
culties were  thrown  in  the  way,  and  some  time  passed  before 
the  Swedish  envoy  could  obtain  a  definite  reply,  and  when  at 
length  Napoleon  gave  the  marshal  permission,  it  was  coupled 
with  the  ominous  farewell  words,  "  Go,  then,  and  let  us  fulfil 
our  several  destinies."  Marshal  Jean  Bernadotte,  who  was  in 
the  prime  of  life  when  he  was  thus  suddenly  and  unexpectedly 
adopted  as  a  member  of  the  Swedish  royal  family  and  pro- 
claimed successor  to  the  throne,  was  a  man  of  ability,  judg- 
ment, and  resolution,  besides  being  one  of  the  bravest  and 
most  successful  of  Napoleon's  generals.  On  his  arrival  in 
Sweden  he  at  once  renounced  Catholicism,  and  was  admitted 
into  the  Lutheran  Church  ;  and  assuming  the  management  of 
affairs  as  the  first  prince  of  the  realm,  he,  without  delay, 
turned  his  mind  to  the  task  of  raising  the  kingdom  from  the 
deplorable  condition  into  which  it  had  fallen.  At  the  moment 
of  Bernadotte's  arrival,  Sweden  was  utterly  and  helplessly  at 
the  mercy  of  the  great  Powers,  and  may  be  said  to  have  been 
little  better  than  a  dependency  of  France.  Napoleon,  after 
forcing  her  to  declare  war  on  England,  and  being  offended  at 
the  want  of  vigour  with  which  hostilities  were  carried  on,  re- 
took Swedish  Pomerania,  which  had  been  restored  for  a  time 
to  Sweden,  and  made  known  to  the  British  and  Russian  govern- 
ments that  he  did  not  care  to  what  extent  Sweden  was  dis- 
membered. This  humiliating  insult  roused  the  spirit  of  Berna- 
dotte, who  exclaimed,  when  he  learnt  what  the  emperor  had 
done,  "  Napoleon  has  himself  thrown  down  the  gauntlet,  and  I 
will  take  it  up  !  "  and  he  forthwith  began  to  prepare  in  earnest 
for  the  struggle  which  he  saw  was  coming. 


SCAND1NA  WAN  IJISTOR  Y. 


Position  of  Sweden.  —  Never  at  any  time  had  Sweden  been  in 
a  worse  condition  for  taking  part  in  war.  Charles  XIII.,  after 
fitting  out  an  army  to  defend  the  northern  frontier,  had  found 
it  impossible  to  continue  the  struggle,  and  in  1809  —  the  same 
year  in  which  he  came  to  the  throne  —  he  had  had  to  make  a 
peace  with  Russia,  which  cost  Sweden  one-third  of  her  entire 
area,  by  depriving  her  of  A  aland  and  of  the  whole  of  Finland, 
after  that  province  had  been  more  than  600  years  united  with 
her,  and  had  shared  with  her  in  all  those  great  wars  which  had 
for  a  time  raised  the  Swedish  monarchy  to  the  rank  of  one  of 
the  most  renowned  powers  of  Europe.  An  unfavourable  peace 
with  Denmark  had  closely  followed  on  the  loss  of  Finland, 
and  when  Bernadotte,  or  "Prince  Karl  Johan,"  as  he  was 
generally  called,  came  to  Sweden,  the  state  had  been  bound 
hand  and  foot  by  the  treaty  of  Paris,  and  Napoleon  now 
thought  that  he  held  the  Swedish  king  and  people  completely 
in  bondage.  It  was  reserved,  however,  for  the  emperor's  old 
brother-in-arms  to  rescue  the  unhappy  kingdom  from  these 
bonds,  for  the  new  prince,  by  entering  into  a  secret  treaty  with 
Alexander  of  Russia,  secured  safety  on  his  weakest  boundaries, 
and  by  joining  heart  and  soul  in  the  war  in  Germany  against 
Napoleon  after  his  fatal  retreat  from  Moscow,  gained  the 
gratitude  of  the  allied  powers,  who  at  the  close  of  those  terrible 
struggles,  which  ended  in  the  total  defeat  of  the  French  em- 
peror, rewarded  the  fidelity  of  Sweden  at  the  cost  of  Denmark 
•by  the  annexation  of  Norway. 

The  Norwegians,  as  we  have  seen  in  a  former  chapter,  were 
not  at  first  willing  to  transfer  their  allegiance  from  Denmark  to 
Sweden,  and  for  a  time  they  cherished  the  hope  of  being  able 
again  to  raise  their  country  to  the  rank  of  an  independent 
kingdom  ;  but  neither  they  nor  the  Danish  prince,  Christian 
Frederick,  whom  they  proclaimed  king,  could  cope  with  the 
Swedes  under  such  a  skilful  commander  as  Bernadotte.  In 
1814  the  Swedish  army  entered  Southern  Norway,  while  the 
Swedish  fleet  cruised  along  the  coast,  and  the  Norwegians, 
driven  from  one  point  to  another,  had  to  submit.  The  Danish 
prince  left  the  country,  and  Charles  XIII.  was  declared  joint 
king  of  Sweden  and  Norway  before  the  close  of  1814.  In 
the  following  year  the  union  was  completed  by  the  so-called 


SWEDEN  FROM  1771    TO  1872.  359 

Riksakt,  or  act  of  the  realm,  by  which  the  respective  functions 
of  the  Swedish  "  Riksdag/'  or  diet,  and  the  Norwegian  "  Stor- 
thing "  were  clearly  defined,  and  the  various  obligations  of  the 
two  countries  settled.  Sweden,  by  the  decree  of  the  Congress, 
of  Vienna  in  1814-1815,  was  empowered  to  give  up  the  whole 
of  her  Pomeranian  territories  to  Prussia  in  exchange  for 
4,800,000  rix  dollars,  and  this  money  Bernadotte,  with  the 
consent  of  the  diet,  used  to  pay  off  the  various  foreign  loans 
which  the  Swedish  government  had  incurred,  and  thus  gave 
Sweden  the  advantage,  which  few  other  countries  enjoyed,  of 
being  free  from  a  state  debt. 


TART  IV. 

A     FRENCH     LINE     OF     KINGS. 

Charles  XIV.,  1818-1844. — Charles  XIII.  was  never  much 
more  than  a  cipher  in  the  state,  and  public  affairs  had  been  so 
completely  under  the  control  of  Bernadotte  since  his  arrival  in 
the  country  in  1810,  that  the  death  of  the  king  in  1818  made 
very  little  real  change  in  the  administration.  Bernadotte,  who 
reigned  over  Sweden  from  1818  till  1844  under  the  title  of 
Charles  XIV.,  by  his  able  rule  fully  justified  the  choice  that 
the  Swedes  had  made,  for  as  soon  as  he  could  secure  peace  he 
devoted  his  energies  to  the  internal  improvement  of  his  king- 
dom, which  now  rapidly  recovered  from  the  exhaustion  of  the 
late  wars,  and  learnt  to  develope  her  own  great  natural  re- 
sources. The  Swedish  people  never  forgot  what  they  owed 
"  Karl  Johan "  for  his  successful  efforts  in  raising  them  from 
the  depressed  condition  in  which  he  found  their  country  to 
one  of  stability  and  comparative  prosperity.  But  as  time  passed, 
and  men  found  that  the  burgher-king  whom  they  had  placed 
upon  the  throne  showed  an  obvious  disinclination  to  extend 
general  political  freedom,  while  he  preferred  and  favoured  the 
nobles  at  the  expense  of  the  lower  orders,  the  nation  at  large  lost 
much  of  their  first  enthusiastic  and  devoted  loyalty,  and  towards 
the  end  of  his  life  Charles  John  certainly  cannot  be  said  to  have 
been  a  popular  king.  His  openly-shown  dread  of  treason,  his 
persecution  of  all  liberal  writers,  his  opposition  to  the  adoption 


360  SCANDINA  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 

of  reforms  in  the  government,  and  his  ignorance  of  the  lan- 
guage of  the  country,  all  contributed  to  produce  a  feeling  of 
discontent  and  impatience  among  the  people  during  the  latter 
years  of  this  reign.  The  period  of  Charles  John's  rule  is, 
however,  one  of  immense  importance  in  the  history  of  Sweden, 
and  is  marked  by  improvements  in  every  form  of  the  national 
life  of  the  people.  Trade  and  commerce  increased,  canals, 
roads,  and  bridges  opened  the  country  in  every  direction, 
colleges  and  higher  schools  sprang  up  in  all  the  towns,  and 
parochial  national  schools  brought  education  within  reach  of 
the  poorest  in  the  land ;  while,  amongst  others,  the  names  of 
Berzelius,  the  chemist,  Gejer,  the  historian,  Tegner,  the  poet, 
and  Fogelberg,  the  sculptor,  afford  honourable  testimony  to 
the  scientific,  literary,  and  artistic  progress  of  the  Swedes  during 
this  period. 

Oscar  I.,  1844-1859.— When  Charles  XIV.  died  in  1844, 
at  the  age  of  eighty,  he  left  by  his  early  marriage  with  a 
French  lady  of  Marseilles,  called  Desiree  Clary,  an  only  son, 
who  succeeded  him  under  the  title  of  Oscar  I.  At  the  first 
diet  held  by  the  new  king  in  1844-1845,  he  fully  confirmed 
the  expectations  which  the  people  had  formed  of  his  liberal 
views,  by  giving  his  consent  to  acts  for  the  improvement  of  the 
mode  of  electing  the  members  of  the  "Riksdag"  and  the 
"Storthing,"  for  the  greater  freedom  of  the  press,  and  for 
securing  equal  rights  of  heritage  to  brothers  and  sisters.  So 
well  did  King  Oscar  and  his  people  understand  each  other 
that  the  disturbances  created  in  almost  every  European  state 
by  the  French  Revolution  of  1848,  scarcely  affected  the 
Swedes,  who  during  the  whole  of  this  reign  continued  to  enjoy 
peace  and  a  greater  amount  of  personal  security  and  individual 
prosperity  than  their  forefathers  had  ever  known.  By  the 
formation  of  a  network  of  railways,  carried  out  at  the  cost  and 
under  the  management  of  the  government,  the  country,  which 
was  already  intersected  by  splendid  canals,  and  had  been  made 
easy  of  access  by  means  of  the  steam  navigation  of  the  great 
lakes,  was  'thrown  open  in  every  direction,  and  under  this 
newer  state  of  things  the  foreign  commerce  and  the  home 
trade  of  Sweden  have  increased  enormously.  Although,  from 
the  nature  of  the  country  and  its  more  severe  climate,  Norway 


SWEDEN  FROM  1771   TO  1872.  361 

has  not  gained  as  much  in  these  respects  as  the  sister  kingdom, 
the  Norwegians  have  prospered  since  their  union  with  the 
Swedes,  and  are  as  remarkable  as  ever  for  the  intellectual 
vigour  and  sturdy  independence  which  more  than  a  thousand 
years  ago  made  their  forefathers  masters  of  every  land  against 
which  they  turned  their  arms,  and  which  since  then  has  enabled 
them  to  hold  on  to  fixed  principles  of  social  equality  through 
all  the  changes  of  their  political  existence. 

Scandinavian  Unity. — The  long  peace  had  the  effect  of 
deadening  old  jealousies  and  drawing  the  Scandinavian  nations 
more  closely  together ;  and  this  better  state  of  feeling,  which 
began  among  the  students  of  the  different  countries,  was  power- 
fully aided  by  King  Oscar,  who  encouraged  international  meet- 
ings for  scientific,  literary,  or  other  objects,  which  he  regarded 
as  the  best  means  of  preventing  future  wars  between  the 
Northern  peoples.  In  the  struggle  carried  on  by  the  Danish 
king,  Frederick  VIL,  against  his  Slesvig-Holstein  subjects, 
King  Oscar  sent  troops  to  help  him,  and  gave  his  cordial,  ap- 
proval to  those  amongst  his  own  people  who  wished  to  serve 
as  volunteers  in  the  Danish  ranks.  At  the  same  time,  King 
Oscar  was  anxious  to  keep  his  kingdom  at  peace,  and  when 
the  Crimean  War  broke  out  he  tried  to  remain  neutral,  but 
after  a  time,  finding  himself  forced  to  side  with  one  party  or 
the  other,  he  entered,  in  1855,  into  an  alliance  with  England 
and  France  against  Russia,  in  return  for  which  he  secured  a 
promise  of  support  from  those  powers  in  case  his  kingdom 
should  at  any  time  be  attacked  by  the  Russians.  At  the 
close  of  the  Crimean  War  a  compact  was  entered  into  between 
Sweden  an  J  Denmark,  mainly  in  consequence  of  the  personal 
friendship  of  the  kings,  Oscar  and  Frederick,  who  wished  to 
establish  such  relations  of  mutual  affection  between  their 
subjects  as  to  make  war  thenceforth  impossible  among  Scandi- 
navian brothers. 

In  1857,  King  Oscar,  whose  health  had  long  been  feeble, 
resigned  the  administration  into  the  hands  of  the  crown  prince, 
his  eldest  son  Charles,  and,  after  lingering  for  two  years,  he 
died  in  1859,  deeply  regretted  by  his  people,  who  justly  regard 
him  as  one  of  the  most  patriotic  and  enlightened  of  their 
kings  in  modern  times.  By  his  queen,  Josephine  of  Leuchten- 


362  SCANDINA  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 

burg,  granddaughter  of  the  French  empress  Josephine,  Oscar 
left,  besides  one  daughter,  four  sons,  of  whom  two,  Charles 
and  Oscar,  have  succeeded  him  on  the  throne  of  Sweden. 

Charles  XV.,  1859-1872. — Charles  XV.  continued  the  policy 
of  his  father,  King  Oscar  I.,  and  at  the  diet  of  1859-1860  he 
approved  of  the  measures  proposed  for  giving  a  more  liberal 
form  to  the  government,  and  encouraged  the  extension  of  the 
railway  system.  Differences  soon  sprang  up  between  the 
Swedish  Riksdag  and  the  Norwegian  Storthing,  which  for  a 
time  threatened  to  cause  serious  evils,  and  the  Norwegian 
people  showed  great  jealousy  of  the  subordinate  position 
which,  according  to  their  view,  they  held  in  the  representation 
of  the  national  chambers,  but  the  angry  excitement  subsided 
nearly  as  quickly  as  it  had  sprung  up,  and  in  1864  the  two 
people  celebrated  with  mutual  good-will  the  fiftieth  anniversary 
of  the  union  of  Sweden  and  Nonvay. 

In  1866  a  new  form  of  government  was  finally  agreed  upon 
for  the  two  kingdoms.  In  accordance  with  the  system  then 
adopted,  and  which  still  continues  in  force,  the  Swedish  diet  is 
to  consist  of  two  chambers  and  to  meet  annually.  The  first 
chamber  is  composed  of  members  chosen  for  nine  years  by  the 
Landsthing  of  each  province  and  by  the  civic  authorities  in 
some  of  the  larger  towns ;  while  the  second  chamber  is  filled 
by  members  chosen  by  universal  suffrage  to  decide  upon 
special  questions.  The  king  can  dissolve  the  chambers  when 
he  likes,  and  demand  a  new  election. 

Charles  XV.,  at  his  death  in  1872,  left  only  one  child,  the 
Princess  Louisa,  wife  of  the  present  Crown  Prince  of  Denmark, 
and  he  was  succeeded  by  his  next  brother,  who  reigns  under 
the  title  of  Oscar  II.  of  Sweden  and  Norway. 


CHAPTER  XXVI. 

DENMARK    SINCE    1839. 

Frederick  VI.,  King  of  Denmark,  succeeded  by  Christian  VIII. — Expec- 
tations of  the  people — Character  of  the  King — Disappointment  of  the 
Danes-— Christian's  merits — His  unpopular  policy  in  regard  to  Holstein 
and  Slesvig — Disputes  in  regard  to  use  of  Danish  in  the  Duchies  — 
Lornsen's  measure — The  Augustenhurg  Princes — The  King's  ill-placed 
confidence  in  them — The  Prince  of  Noer's  appointment  cancelled — The 
question  of  the  succession — How  settled — The  calm  followed  by  outbreak 
of  storm — The  Germanizing  influences  at  work — Dahlmann's  discovery 
of  original  draft  of  Charter — Influence  of  discovery — Christian's  death 
— Frederick  VII. — Troubles — Rebellion  in  Duchies — False  news  cir- 
culated by  Frederick,  Prince  of  Noer — Prussia  interferes  and  keeps  up 
strife  —  War  in  Holstein  —  Confederate  troops  outnumber  Danes  -- 
"Wrangel  retaliates  on  Danes — Prussians  recalled — Truce  of  Malmo — 
War  breaks  out  again — Rye  and  the  other  Danish  generals — Their  con- 
duct— Frederitz  relieved — Another  truce — Duchies  governed  by  com- 
missioners— Confederate  troops — Peace  with  Prussia — Denmark  puts 
down  rebellion — Willisen  commands  Holstein  troops — Is  defeated  by 
Danes  at  Isted,  in  Slesvig — Joint  Commission  governs  Holstein — As- 
sembly frame  Constitution — Its  nature — The  Rigsdag — Mode  of  elec- 
tion— Great  liberty  of  Danes — Question  of  succession — Choice  of  Prince 
Christian  of  Gliicksburg — Ten  years  to  death  of  the  king— Troubles  at 
home — Interference  from  abroad — Prussia  supports  the  Augustenburg 
claims — Renunciation  of  family  to  all  claims  in  the  Duchies — Compact 
broken — 'Frederick  VII.  dies  suddenly  — Christian  IX.  —  Troubles  in 
Duchies — War  renewed' — England  mediates,  but  does  not  help — Den- 
mark fights  unaided — Subdued  by  Prussian  arms — Austria  cedes  rights 
acquired  in  the  former  war  to  Prussia  after  her  defeat  in  1866 — Prussia 
evades  conditions — King  William  of  Prussia  drops  pretensions  of  the 
Augustenburg  Princes — Is  crowned  Emperor — Realization  of  the  dream 
of  German  unification—  Denmark  recovers  herself — Her  prosperity — 
Her  complete  freedom. 

PART  I. 
THE  LANGUAGE  TROUBLE. 

Christian  VIII.,  1839-1848. — As  Frederick  VI.  left  no  son 
he  was  succeeded  by  his  cousin,  Christian  VIII.     The  coming 


364  SCAKDIXA  VIAN  HTSTOR  Y. 


of  this  prince  to  the  throne  was  hailed  with  joy  "by  the  entire 
Danish  nation,  who  believed  that  in  him  they  would  find  a 
ruler  of  liberal  and  advanced  views.  But  the  great  expecta- 
tions of  the  people  were  only  partially  satisfied,  for  although 
King  Christian  was  a  man  of  talent,  aptitude  for  literary  re- 
search, and  of  varied  scientific  information,  and  was  known  to 
be  well  versed  in  all  the  political  questions  of  the  day,  he 
showed  from  the  moment  of  his  accession  a  reluctance  to 
pledge  himself  to  any  liberal  measure,  and  a  resolute  deter- 
mination to  stand  by  the  old  prerogatives  of  the  crown,  which 
caused  universal  disappointment  and  fear  for  the  future.  The 
relations  between  the  king  and  the  chambers  became  more 
and  more  unfriendly  during  each  year  of  his  reign,  and  al- 
though he  effected  many  improvements  in  the  government, 
reduced  the  national  debt  from  124  to  104  millions  rix  dollars, 
encouraged  the  promotion  of  learning  and  extension  of  schools, 
and  impressed  a  new  and  more  enlightened  spirit  into  the 
public  institutions  of  the  country,  the  people  remained  un- 
satisfied, and  the  press,  in  defiance  of  restrictions  and  severe 
penalties,  continued  to  give  circulation  to  works  of  decided 
reactionary  character.  The  most  important  cause  of  popular 
dissatisfaction  against  the  king  was  his  unpatriotic  policy  in 
regard  to  Slesvig  and  Holstein,  where  the  most  flagrant  acts  of 
disobedience  to  the  orders  of  the  crown  on  the  part  of  the 
provincial  authorities — which  had  not  unfrequently  proceeded 
to  the  length  of  open  treason — -were  allowed  to  pass  un- 
punished. 

The  questions  of  school-management  and  of  the  language 
which  should  be  used  by  preachers  and  teachers  in  the  duchies 
had  become  serious  causes  of  dissension  between  all  political 
parties  in  the  kingdom  as  early  as  1836,  when  a  Slesvig  peasant, 
Nils  Lornsen,  a  member  of  the  Assembly  of  the  States  at 
Slesvig,  made  a  motion  that  Danish  should  be  established  by 
law  as  the  language  for  legal  and  administrative  purposes  in 
every  part  of  the  duchy,  where  it  was  the  predominant  tongue 
used  in  the  pulpits  and  schools.  This  proposition  met  with 
violent  opposition  from  all  the  great  landowners  of  the  duchies, 
who,  through  the  negligence  and  indifference  of  successive 
Danish  governments,  had  been  allowed  to  bring  German 


DENMARK  SINCE  1839.  365 

teachers  and  preachers  into  the  parishes  over  which  they  had 
manorial  or  other  rights.  Although  Lornsen  motion  passed 
by  a  small  majority,  it  made  little  difference  in  the  condition 
of  things,  and  soon  the  question  of  a  separate  independence 
for  Slesvig  aud  Holstein  was  openly  brought  forward  by  the 
German  leaders  of  the  anti-Danish  party.  The  chief  movers 
in  this  matter  were  Duke  Christian  of  Augustenburg  and  his 
brother,  Prince  Frederick  of  Noer,  who,  by  their  personal 
influence,  through  anonymous  writings,  and  by  other  direct  as 
well  as  indirect  means,  laboured  for  the  complete  severance  of 
the  provinces  from  the  mother-land. 

Great  ill-will  and  suspicion  were  therefore  excited  against 
the  king  when  he  raised  the  Prince  of  Noer,  in  1842,  to  the 
rank  of  Stadtholder  and  commander-in-chief  in  Slesvig  and 
Holstein,  and  made  him  president  of  the  government  of  the 
duchies.  As  the  queen,  Caroline  Amalia,  was  a  sister  of  the 
Augustenburg  princes,  this  appointment  was  thought  to  be  due 
to  her  influence,  and  was  looked  upon  as  so  injurious  to  the 
cause  of  the  Danes  in  the  Slesvig-Holstein  provinces,  that  it 
drew  forth  violent  and  angry  remonstrances  in  every  part  of 
the  Danish  islands.  Some  of  the  ministers  resigned  in  conse- 
quence, and  general  discontent  prevailed;  but  the  king  paid 
no  attention  to  the  dissatisfaction,  and,  declaring  that  he  had 
entire  confidence  in  the  honour  of  the  Augustenburg  princes, 
he  further  displeased  and  surprised  his  Danish  subjects  by 
giving  the  posts  of  chancellor  and  foreign  secretary  for  the 
duchies  to  the  Counts  Joseph  and  Heinrik  Reventlow  Criminil, 
the  devoted  friends  of  the  duke  and  his  brother,  Prince  Frede- 
rick. This  fresh  proof  of  the  king's  favour  gave  the  greatest 
satisfaction  and  encouragement  to  the  Augustenburg  party  and 
to  all  the  malcontents,  who  at  the  following  meeting  of  the 
Assembly  at  Slesvig  were  emboldened  to  propose  that  steps 
should  be  taken  for  the  admission  of  Slesvig  into  the  German 
Confederation,  in  anticipation  of  which  the  use  of  the  Danish 
language  was  to  be  suppressed  in  the  duchies,  and  the  Danish 
tlag,  the  Daunebrog,  was  to  be  replaced  by  a  special  flag  for 
the  united  state  of  Slesvig-Holstein.  These  treasonable  pro- 
positions called  forth  the  strongest  expressions  of  resentment 
among  the  patriotic  Danes,  and  petitions  against  the  outrage 


366  SCANDINA  VI AN  HISTOR  Y. 

done  to  the  language  and  flag  of  the  kingdom  poured  in  upon 
Christian  VIII.,  who  in  his  replies  showed  a  want  of  interest 
in  the  concerns  and  wishes  of  his  Danish  subjects  that  filled 
the  country  with  consternation.  The  ill-will  and  suspicion 
generated  by  these  proceedings  were  somewhat  allayed  in  1846, 
when  the  king  deprived  Prince  Frederick  of  Noer  of  the  im- 
portant posts  which  had  been  intrusted  to  him  in  1842.  This 
change  of  policy,  which  restored  temporary  order  to  the 
duchies,  had  been  forced  upon  the  king  by  the  pretensions  of 
the  Duke  of  Augustenburg  to  rights  of  succession  in  Slesvig,  and 
by  his  protests  against  the  open  royal  letter  published  in  1846, 
in  which  Christian  VIII.  had  set  forth  the  order  of  succession 
to  the  throne  of  Denmark  in  accordance  with  the  opinion 
given  by  a  commission  called  together  to  consider  the  question. 
In  this  document  Slesvig  was  declared  to  be  an  indivisible  and 
integral  part  of  the  Danish  monarchy  ;  but  the  title  to  certain 
portions  of  Holstein  was  admitted  to  be  open  to  dispute,  and 
was  therefore  left  for  further  consideration. 

The  storm  bursts. — The  calm  that  had  followed  the  dismissal 
of  the  Prince  of  Noer  in  the  duchies  was  only  the  lull  before 
the  greater  storm,  which  burst  forth  a  few  weeks  after  the  death 
of  Christian  VIII.  in  January  1848.  The  outbreak  of  open 
rebellion  was  probably  hastened  by  the  French  Revolution  of 
February  1848,  which  carried  the  waves  of  disturbance  over 
almost  every  part  of  Continental  Europe.  In  the  Danish 
provinces  everything  was  ripe  for  a  final  revolutionary  move- 
ment against  the  monarchy.  The  higher  classes,  who  had 
been  indoctrinated  with  German  ideas  by  the  professors  of  the 
University  of  Kiel,  which  was  the  centre  of  Germanising  in- 
lluences,  were  eager  for  a  union  with  what  they  termed  their 
true  Fatherland,  whilst  the  lower  orders  were  roused  into 
temporary  excitement  against  Denmark  through  the  press  of 
Germany,  by  public  appeals,  and  by  every  other  means  at  the 
command  of  the  leaders  of  the  party.  Foremost  amongst  the 
learned  advocates  of  the  independence  of  the  duchies  was  the 
great  historian,  Dahlmann,  who,  in  his  researches,  had  dis- 
covered among  the  archives  at  Preet/  the  original  draft  of  the 
long-forgotten  compact  between  Christian  I.  and  the  nobles  of 
Slesvig  and  of  Holstein,  drawn  up  in  1460,  in  which  that  king 


DENMARK  SINCE  1839.  367 

had  agreed  that  both  provinces  should  remain  "  for  ever  un- 
divided."1 Through  the  instrumentality  of  Professor  Dahl- 
mann,  this  document  was  printed  as  the  unchangeable  charter 
of  the  liberties  of  Slesvig  and  Holstein,  and  by  the  importance 
attached  to  it  in  the  minds  of  the  people  it  became  a  very 
powerful  agent  in  the  work  of  separating  the  duchies  from  the 
mother-country. 

Frederick  VIII.,  1848-1863.  War  in  the  Duchies. — Christian 
VIII.  died  almost  suddenly  in  January  1848,  at  the  height  of 
popular  disturbances  in  every  part  of  his  dominions  •  for 
while  the  Slesvig-Holsteiners  were  clamouring  for  the  realiza- 
tion of  their  dream  of  a  union  with  Germany,  the  people  of 
the  islands  and  Jutland  were  equally  impatient  to  secure  the 
free  constitution  for  which  they  hungered.  Frederick  VII.  had 
only  just  ascended  the  throne  of  Denmark  when  the  outbreak 
of  the  French  Revolution  brought  the  many  troubles  which 
he  had  inherited  with  his  crown  to  their  full  maturity.  The 
Slesvig-Holsteiners,  taking  courage  from  the  success  of  French 
malcontents  by  the  Revolution  at  Paris  of  February  1848.  sent 
a  deputation  to  Copenhagen  to  demand  the  immediate  recog- 
nition by  the  king  of  a  joint  state  of  Slesvig-Holstein  previous 
to  its  admittance  into  the  German  Confederation.  King 
Frederick's  reply,  in  which  he  admitted  the  right  of  Holstein 
as  a  German  confederate  state  to  be  guided  by  the  decrees  of 
the  Frankfort  diet,  but  declared  that  he  had  neither  "the 
power,  right,  nor  wish  "  to  incorporate  Slesvig  in  the  confedera- 
tion, was  immediately  followed,  if  even  it  had  not  been  pre- 
ceded, by  an  outbreak  of  open  rebellion.  On  the  very  day  in 
which  the  king  wrote  his  reply,  Prince  Frederick  of  Noer 
gained  over  the  garrison  of  the  Castle  of  Rendsburg  by  circu- 
lating the  false  news  that  Copenhagen  was  in  a  state  of  siege 
and  Frederick  VII.  a  prisoner,  while  at  the  same  time  his 
elder  brother,  the  Duke  of  Augustenburg,  had  gone  to  Berlin 
to  demand  help  from  the  Prussian  king,  William  IV.  At  that 
time  the  insurrection  had  taken  no  hold  of  the  mass  of  the 
people  ;  and  the  Danish  army,  which  advanced  rapidly  into 
the  duchies,  found  no  difficulty  in  dispersing  and  thoroughly 
breaking  up  the  regiments  under  Prince  Frederick,  who  neither 
1  See  Chapter  XV. 


368  SCANDL\'A  VI AX  HISTOR  V. 

on  this  nor  on  any  subsequent  occasion  gave  proof  of  military 
skill  or  even  of  ordinary  courage.  The  rebellion  would  speedily 
have  been  put  down  had  not  Prussia  and  the  German  Con- 
federation made  it  a  pretext  for  drawing  away  the  minds  of 
Germans  from  the  ideas  of  constitutional  liberty,  which  they 
were  beginning  to  entertain  ;  and  hence  the  war  of  the  Danish 
duchies  was  used  as  a  safety-valve  for  troublesome  agitation. 

The  Danes  had  met  the  Holstein  army  near  Flensborg,  and 
forced  it  to  fall  back ;  but  before  they  could  follow  up  their 
advantages,  the  insurgents  received  strong  reinforcements  of 
German  Confederate  troops,  under  Generals  Wrangel  and 
Halkett.  On  the  23rd  of  April,  1848,  a  fierce  battle  was 
fought  near  Slesvig  between  the  allied  armies,  amounting  to 
28,000  men,  and  the  Danes,  who  were  under  the  command  of 
General  Hedemann.  The  result  was  unfavourable  to  the 
Danish  army,  which,  numbering  only  11,000  men  and  being 
unprovided  with  the  better  and  more  modern  weapons  carried 
by  the  German  troop?,  was  forced,  after  a  gallant  stand  pro- 
longed through  the  whole  day,  to  retreat  upon  the  little  island 
Als,  which  is  separated  by  a  narrow,  but  deep  sound  from  the 
mainland,  and  was  at  the  time  protected  by  Danish  ships  of 
the  line.  Here  the  Danes  were  able  to  recruit  their  strength, 
whilst  their  ships  harassed  the  enemy's  encampments  on  the 
opposite  shore  ;  but  General  Wrangel,  by  way  of  retaliation, 
advanced  inland,  and,  throwing  himself  into  Jutland,  demanded 
the  payment  of  four  million  rix  dollars  from  the  Jutlanders  in 
return  for  the  damage  inflicted  on  his  army  by  the  Danish 
shipping.  Before  he  could  enforce  his  demands,  however,  he 
received  orders  from  the  Prussian  court  to  retire  south  of  the 
little  stream  known  as  the  Konge-aae  in  SU-svig  ;  nnd  he  was 
therefore  forced  at  once  to  evacuate  the  territory  of  J  .aland.  This 
sudden  and  unexpected  movement  was  the  resuk  of  Russian 
intervention,  which  the  Prussian  monarch  was  not  in  a  position 
to  defy;  and  hence  the  Berlin  war  minister  had  been  con- 
strained to  instruct  General  Wrangel  that  the  old  line  of  the 
Konge-Aae  was  not  to  be  crossed  by  his  army. 

At  the  same  time,  King  Oscar  of  Sweden  sent  troops  into 
Fyen  to  help  the  Danes,  but  before  they  could  strike  a  blow 
tiie  great  Powers  interfered,  and  by  their  exertions  a  trace  for 


DENMARK  SINCE  1839.  369 


seven  months  was  agreed  upon,  and  signed  at  Malmo  on  the 
26th  of  August  between  Denmark  and  the  German  Con- 
federation. 


PART  II. 

SUCCESS     OF    THE     DANES. 

End  of  Truce. — By  this  treaty  it  was  agreed  that  the  duchies 
should  be  governed  till  the  conclusion  of  the  war  by  five  Slesvig 
und  Holstein  commissioners,  chosen  conjointly  by  the  kings  of 
Prussia  and  Denmark.    But  so  much  dissatisfaction  was  caused 
in  the  provinces  by  this  mode  of  government,  which  pleased 
neither  party,  that   Frederick  VII.  determined  to  continue  the 
war  as   soon    as   the   seven   months'   truce   had   ended.     The 
Germans  were  equally  eager  to  resume  hostilities,  and  in  the 
spring  of    1849,   80,000   insurgent   and    German    confederate 
troops  were  brought  under  arms  in  the  duchies.     The  Danes 
beat    back    the     Hanoverians    under    General     Wynecken    at 
Ullerup,  and  inflicted  a  severe  loss  on   an   army  of  Saxons, 
Bavarians,  and  Hessians,  who  tried  to  take  the  Dybbel  works 
by  storm  ;   but  they  were  unfortunate  in   losing  some  of  the 
best  of  their  men-of-war  ;  and  when  the  fine  line-of-battle-ship, 
Kristian    VIIL,   and    the   war-frigate  Gefion,    were  forced  to 
surrender   from    want    of  ammunition,   a  feeling    of  profound 
depression    spread    through    the   kingdom.     General    Rye,   in 
conjunction  with  the  Generals  Schleppegrell  and  Moltke,  suc- 
ceeded in   relieving  Kolding  in  Jutland  and  driving  out  the 
insurgents;  and   this  achievement,  together  with  his  masterly 
retreat  before  an  army  triple  his  own  in  numbers,  by  which  he 
was  enabled  to  bring  his  men  in  good  order  to  the  help   of 
Frederits,  somewhat  restored  the  failing  hopes  of  the  Danes, 
while  it  excited  the  admiration  of  their  enemies.     Rye  fell  in 
the  engagement   which    took    place   before   Frederits  in  July 
1849,  when  the  Danes,  under  the  chief  command  of  General 
Billow,  carried  by  assault  the  Holstein  lines,  and,  in  addition 
to  a  large  number  of  prisoners,   took  31   cannons  and  3,000 
arms  from  the  insurgents.     With  this  Danish  victory  the  cam- 
paign ended  and  another  truce  was  agreed  upon,  daring  which 

B    B 


370  SCA  NDINA  VIA  N  HIS  TOR  Y. 

the  provinces  were  again  placed  under  commissioners,  among 
whom  was  included  an  English  plenipotentiary,  Colonel 
Hodges,  the  others  being  for  Denmark  Chamberlain  Tillisch, 
and  for  Prussia  Count  Eulenburg.  The  southern  districts  were 
under  the  guard  of  Prussian  troops,  and  the  northern  under 
Swedes  and  Norwegians.  The  result  was  much  as  in  the 
former  case ;  the  Germans  did  all  in  their  power  to  thwart  the 
intentions  of  the  Danish  king,  and  the  English  and  Danish 
commissioners  found  themselves  unable  to  maintain  order.  Soon, 
however,  a  peace  was  concluded  svith  Prussia,  and  after  that 
Denmark  for  the  first  time  since  the  beginning  of  the  war 
found  herself  at  liberty  to  deal  single-handed  with  the  insur- 
gents, who  had,  however,  succeeded  in  getting  together  an 
army  of  upwards  of  30,000  men,  which  was  under  the  com- 
mand of  a  Prussian  general,  Willisen. 

On  July  ist,  1850,  before  the  armistice  had  expired,  Willisen 
took  up  a  strong  position  at  Isted,  near  Slesvig  ;  after  having 
made  a  public  entry  into  the  town  accompanied  by  the  Duke 
of  Augustenburg,  who  assumed  the  title  and  character  of 
sovereign  of  the  provinces,  and  made  constant  appeals  to  the 
people  as  if  he  were  a  wronged  prince,  about  to  tight  for  his 
own  and  their  independence  against  an  oppressive  tyrant.  The 
Danish  army,  numbering  37,000  men,  under  General  Krogh, 
attacked  the  insurgents  July  24th,  and  on  that  and  the  following 
day,  in  the  midst  of  rain  and  heavy  mist,  a  decisive  battle  was 
fought  at  Isted,  which  ended  in  the  retreat  of  Willisen,  and  in 
the  occupation  by  the  triumphant  Danes  of  Slesvig  and  the 
old  Danish  frontier  defences,  the  Dannevirke.  An  attack  on 
Midsunde  in  the  following  September  by  Willisen  was  equally 
unsuccessful ;  and  after  the  insurgents  had  been  driven  back 
with  frightful  loss  from  Fredericksstad,  where  one  Holstein 
battalion  lost  all  its  officers  and  was  nearly  destroyed,  the 
German  Confederate  government  interfered,  ami  sent  40.000 
Austrians  into  the  Holstein  territory,  after  which  the  rebel  army 
was  disbanded,  and  a  joint  Danish,  Prussian,  and  Austrian 
commission  was  appointed  to  govern  Holstein  till  its  relations 
to  Denmark  could  be  defined,  while  Slesvig  was  left  under  the 
control  of  the  Danish  king  to  be  dealt  with  as  he  and  his 
advisers  might  determine. 


DENMARK  SINCE  1839.  371 

The  Constitution  framed. — While  the  Danes  in  the  provinces 
had  been  going  through  this  hard  struggle  against  the  superior 
power  of  the  German  armies,  the  members  of  the  national 
assembly  in  Copenhagen  had  been  busied  in  trying  to  form  a 
new  constitution  for  the  country.  Frederick  VII.  immediately- 
after  his  coming  to  the  throne  had  promised  to  resign  the 
nearly  absolute  power  which  still  belonged  to  the  Danish 
crown,  and  to  share  his  authority  with  his  people.  In  fulfil- 
ment of  his  pledge  he  had  called  together  an  assembly  to 
consider  and  plan  the  system  of  constitutional  and  representa- 
tive government  that  should  be  adopted  in  Denmark  both  for 
the  islands  and  the  duchies.  The  charter,  which  was  drawn 
up  by  the  assembly  of  1849  and  signed  by  the  king  in  1850,  is 
the  basis  of  the  very  great  individual  and  political  freedom 
which  the  Danes  now  enjoy  ;  although  in  consequence  of  the 
interference  of  the  German  Confederation,  which  claimed  the 
right  to  settle  the  mode  of  government  to  be  adopted  for 
Holstein,  and  owing  to  the  obstacles  thrown  in  the  way  of 
granting  free  constitutional  power  to  the  people  both  by 
Austria  and  Prussia,  the  original  plan  of  the  Danish  consti- 
tution received  for  some  years  numerous  modifications  and 
limitations  never  designed  by  the  patriotic  Frederick  VII. 
Without  referring  to  any  of  these  temporary  changes  and  inter- 
ruptions to  the  course  of  Danish  constitutional  liberty,  we 
may  here  content  ourselves  with  giving  merely  the  result  of 
the  movement  begun  under  King  Frederick,  which  is,  that 
at  present  Denmark  and  Jutland  enjoy  a  free  constitution  ; 
in  conformity  with  which  no  public  measures  can  be  adopted, 
no  taxes  can  be  imposed,  and  no  law  passed  without  the  joint 
consent  of  the  "  Rigsdag,"  or  diet,  and  of  the  king.  The 
latter  governs  by  a  ministry,  who  are  responsible  for  their  acts, 
while  the  sovereign  is  considered  irresponsible.  The  Rigsdag 
meets  every  year,  and  is  composed  of  a  Landsthing  and  a 
Folksthing.  The  right  of  voting  and  of  being  elected  to  sit 
in  the  Folksthing  is  universal,  being  only  dependent  upon  cer- 
tain requisite  qualifications  of  age,  character,  education,  &c., 
and  has  nothing  to  do  with  rank  or  station.  Election  to  the 
Landsthing  is  restricted  by  certain  very  moderate  qualifications 
of  property  and  standing,  while,  according  to  the  resolutions  of 

B  B   2 


372  SCANDINAVIAN  HISTORY. 


1866,  twelve  of  the  sixty-six  members  are  nominated  for  life 
by  the  king,  and  the  remainder  are  chosen  for  a  term  of  eight 
years  by  deputies  from  Copenhagen  and  the  other  great  towns 
of  the  kingdom.  Freedom  of  religion  is  allowed  to  all  persons 
in  Denmark  ;  the  press  is  quite  unrestrained  ;  no  one  can, 
according  to  the  Danish  law,  be  kept  in  confinement  more 
than  twenty-four  hours  without  being  brought  before  the  proper 
authorities  and  charged  with  his  offence,  when  judgment  must 
be  given  on  his  case  within  a  definite  period.  In  every  par- 
ticular the  liberty  of  the  subject  and  the  power  of  the  law  are 
protected  ;•  and,  as  at  present  constituted,  there  is  no  form  of 
government  in  any  country  that  can  boast  of  greater  freedom 
and  justice  in  regard  to  every  class  of  the  population  than  the 
one  established  in  Denmark. 

The  Succession  settled. — In  the  year  1850  the  question  of  the 
succession  to  the  Danish  crown  was  settled,  and  in  conse- 
quence of  the  king  and  his  uncle  and  nearest  heir,  Prince 
Ferdinand,  being  both  childless,  it  was  determined  to  make 
choice  of  some  prince  connected  with  the  royal  family  of 
Denmark  to  succeed  to  the  throne.  By  the  consent  of  the 
Rigsdag  and  with  the  concurrence  of  .the  great  European 
powers,  expressed  in  a  protocol  signed  in  London  1852.  Prince 
Christian  of  Gliicksburg  was  named  successor  to  the  throne, 
which  after  his  death  was  to  devolve  on  the  male  descendants 
of  himself  and  his  wife  the  Princess  Louisa  of  Hesse,  who, 
through  .her  mother,  Princess  Charlotte  of  Denmark,  was  the 
niece  of  the  late  king  Christian  VIII.  of  Denmark.  The  ten 
years  of  Frederick  VI I. 's  reign  which  intervened  between  this 
settlement  of  the  succession  and  his  death  in  1863  may  1  it- 
said  to  have  been  one  continued  struggle  to  reconcile  the 
jealous  demands  of  the  various  portions  of  his  kingdom  for 
special  political  concessions  ;  and  to  keep  at  a  distance  the 
officious  interference  of  foreign  powers,  who  in  consequence  of 
having  been  called  upon  to  be  parties  to  the  treaty  of  London 
of  1852,  which  settled  the  question  of  succession  to  the 
Danish  throne,  thought  themselves  justified  in  offering  advice 
and  making  remonstrances  in  regard  to  all  questions  of 
internal  Danish  policy.  Prussia  especially  never  ceased  her 
efforts  to  prevent  an  amicable  adjustment  of  the  differences 


DENMARK  SINCE  1839.  373 

between  Slesvig  and  the  mother-country;  and  as  a  handle  for 
future  action  in  the  matter  of  the  succession  to  the  Danish 
throne,  the  Prussian  king  gave  secret  support  to  the  Duke  of 
Augustenburg  in  the  duchies,  and  thus  advocated  his  claim  to 
the  crown  lands  of  Denmark  in  defiance  of  the  London  treaty 
of  succession  and  of  the  act  of  renunciation  by  which  Duke 
Christian  had  pledged  himself  in  his  own  name  and  in  that  of 
his  heirs  to  give  up  all  pretensions  he  might  be  supposed  to 
have  to  the  Slesvig-Holstein  lands.  At  the  close  of  the  war 
the  Duke  and  his  brother,  Prince  Frederick  of  Noer,  being 
in  the  position  of  rebels  bearing  arms  against  the  sovereign, 
were  amenable  to  the  penalties  of  treason.  They  at  that  time 
accepted  the  free  pardon  offered  them  on  the  conditions 
attached  to  it ;  and  these  were  the  renunciation  of  all  pre- 
tensions to  the  sovereignty  of  any  part  of  the  Slesvig-Holstein 
lands,  the  removal  of  all  members  of  the  Augustenburg  family 
from  the  Danish  territories,  and  their  acceptance  of  a  large 
sum  of  money  as  a  full  and  final  settlement  of  all  their  claims. 
This  compact  did  not  prove  of  much  avail,  for,  immediately 
after  the  sudden  death  of  Frederick  VII.  of  Denmark  in  1863, 
the  eldest  son  of  the  Duke  of  Augustenburg  hastened  into 
the  duchies,  and,  with  the  concurrence  of  his  father  and  uncle, 
assumed  the  title  of  Duke  Frederick  VIII.  of  the  united  and 
independent  province  of  Slesvig-Holstein. 


PART  III. 

THE     REIGNING     DYNASTY. 

Christian  IX.,  1863. — Frederick  VII.  of  Denmark  had  died 
very  suddenly,  at  the  age  of  fifty-five,  at  the  castle  of  Gliicks- 
burg,  in  Northern  Slesvig,  in  the  autumn  of  1863  ;  and  as 
soon  as  the  news  of  his  death  reached  Copenhagen  the  ap- 
pointed successor  to  the  throne,  Prince  Christian  of  Gliicks- 
burg,  was  proclaimed  king  under  the  title  of  Christian  IX. 
The  death  of  Frederick  created  universal  sorrow  among  the 
Danes,  by  whom  he  was  much  beloved  on  account  of  his 
patriotic  self-denial  in  giving  up  his  own  supreme  power  in 


374  SCANDINAVIAN  HISTORY. 

order  that  he  might  gratify  the  wishes  of  his  people  for  a 
constitutional  form  of  government.  The  event  brought  the 
long  slumbering  discontent  to  a  crisis  in  the  duchies,  where 
for  a  time  the  pretensions  of  the  self-styled  Duke  Frede- 
rick VIII.  of  Slesvig-Holstein  were  supported  by  Austria 
and  Prussia,  as  well  as  by  the  lesser  German  powers.  And 
before  the  close  of  the  year  the  duchies  of  Holstein  and 
Slesvig  were  occupied  by  Austrian  and  Prussian  armies  under 
the  respective  commands  of  Generals  Gablenz  and  Wrangel, 
who  were  sent  to  enforce  the  demand  made  by  those  powers 
that  Slesvig  should  be  given  up  to  them  to  be  held  under 
military  occupation  until  the  question  of  the  claims  of  the 
House  of  Augustenburg  to  the  duchies  should  be  definitely 
settled.  These  steps  on  the  part  of  the  great  German  powers 
left  Denmark  no  alternative  but  to  prepare  for  war.  While 
Prussia  and  Austria  in  the  name  of  the  German  Confederation 
were  pressing  one  condition  after  the  other  upon  the  Danish 
government,  each  more  galling  than  the  last,  England  strove 
to  avoid  the  rupture  of  peace  at  any  cost,  and  so  often  volun- 
teered to  act  as  umpire  between  the  different  parties  and  to 
mediate  in  favour  of  Denmark,  that  the  Danes  felt  convinced 
they  might  rely  upon  the  active  support  of  the  British  govern- 
ment. In  full  expectation  of  being  backed  by  England,  the 
Danish  king  sent  an  army  of  40,000  men  under  General  de 
Meza  to  defend  the  Dannevirke  ;  but  after  several  skirmishes 
with  the  Prussians,  De  Meza  threw  up  his  position  and  retreated 
on  Dvbbel,  from  which  he  carried  his  army  across  the  Sound 
into  the  little  island  Als. 

The  news  of  this  retrograde  movement  and  the  loss  of  the 
ancient  national  line  of  defences,  to  whose  preservation  the 
Danes  attached  an  almost  superstitious  importance,  created  the 
deepest  depression  in  the  islands  and  was  followed  by  the 
substitution  of  General  Gerlach,  as  commander-in-chief  in  the 
place  of  General  de  Meza,  who  gave  in  his  resignation.  As 
time  went  on,  and  it  became  certain  that  France  and  England 
were  not  going  to  afford  the  aid  which  the  Danes  had  expected 
from  them,  and  that  even  Sweden,  on  whose  friendly  support 
the  people  had  relied,  was  following  the  example  set  by  those 
great  powers  of  non-interference  in  the  war,  the  general  depres- 


DENMARK  SINCE  1839.  375 

sion  was  changed  into  hopeless  despair.  The  English  govern- 
ment had  so  often  in  the  course  of  the  preceding  events  offered 
advice  to  the  Danish  king,  and  by  their  mediation  with  the 
German  powers  had  shown  so  strong  an  interest  in  the  mainte- 
nance of  the  integrity  of  the  kingdom,  that  the  Danes  were  the 
more  dispirited  when  they  found  that  they  would  be  left  single- 
handed  to  oppose  their  powerful  foes.  This  feeling  was, 
however,  not  betrayed  by  any  hesitation  in  meeting  the  invaders; 
and  in  spite  of  inferior  numbers  and  imperfect  appliances  for 
warfare,  the  Danes  made  a  gallant  defence,  and  gave  proofs  of 
courage  and  endurance  which  won  for  them  the  admiration  and 
sympathy  of  all  who  looked  dispassionately  at  the  unequal 
struggle  in  which  they  were  engaged.  But  it  was  impossible 
long  to  maintain  a  contest  against  such  fearful  odds.  The 
Prussians  had  seized  upon  one  strong  point  after  the  other, 
and  occupied  the  provinces  from  the  Eyder  to  the  northernmost 
extremity  of  Jutland.  Then  in  order  to  save  the  monarchy 
from  entire  annihilation,  Christian  IX.  and  his  government  were 
forced  to  accept  the  terms  offered  them  by  the  peace  of  Vienna, 
which  was  signed  in  October,  1864,  and  by  which  the  Danish 
king  renounced  all  claims  on  the  duchies  of  Lauenburg, 
Holstein  and  Slesvig,  and  pledged  himself  to  abide  by  what- 
ever decision  Austria  and  Prussia  might  take  in  regard  to  the 
future  disposal  of  those  provinces. 

Prussia  in  the  ascendent. — After  the  war  between  Prussia  and 
Austria  in  1866,  when  the  former  remained  victor  and  could 
dictate  her  own  terms,  she  secured  to  herself  by  the  treaty  of 
Prague  all  the  rights  vested  in  the  Austrian  emperor  in  regard 
to  the  occupation  and  disposal  of  the  Slesvig- Holstein  pro- 
vinces, and  since  then  Denmark  has  been  made  to  feel  very 
sharply  the  force  of  Prussian  domination.  Austria  had  stipu- 
lated that  North  Slesvig  should  be  restored  to  Denmark  uncon- 
ditionally, provided  the  people  by  a  plebiscite,  or  universal  vote, 
should  proclaim  their  wish  to  be  reunited  to  the  Danish 
monarchy.  Hitherto,  however,  Prussia  has  retained  her  Isold 
on  the  Slesvig  territory  without  having  had  recourse  to  this  test  of 
the  popular  feelings  and  wishes.  The  pretensions  of  the  House 
of  Augustenburg  have  in  like  manner  been  entirely  laid  aside, 
and  all  idea  of  their  future  re-assertion  has  been  destroyed  by 


376  SC AND  IN  A  VIA  N  HIST  OR  Y. 


the  absorption  of  Slesvig-Holstein  in  the  present  German 
empire,  which  is  intended  by  its  founder  to  realize  the  dream 
of  the  unification  of  a  Fatherland,  and,  therefore,  designed  to 
embrace  under  one  rule  all  (ierman  or  Teutonic-tongued 
nations.  The  successful  head  of  this  vast  conglomeration  of 
states  is  William  I.,  late  king  of  Prussia,  who,  after  his  great 
war  with  France'  in  1870 — 71,  solemnized  his  victories  by  the 
assumption  of  the  crown  of  the  German  empire. 

Denmark  has  recovered  rapidly  from  her  past  calamities  and 
troubles,  and  under  the  popular  rule  of  her  constitutional  king, 
Christian  IX.,  is  in  the  enjoyment  of  the  most  complete  political 
and  social  freedom,  coupled  with  a  degree  of  internal  quiet, 
industrial  and  commercial  activity,  and  intellectual  progress, 
hitherto  unparalleled  in  the  history  of  any  other  equally  small 
state. 


INDEX. 


c  c 


INDEX. 


A. 

Aagard,  battle  of,  191 

Aase  Sound,  battle  on,  211,  215 

Abel,  King  of  Denmark,  his 
quarrels  with  his  brother  Erik, 
122  ;  he  causes  him  to  be  mur- 
dered, 123  ;  his  false  oath  before 
his  accession,  124;  his  reign,  ib.; 
he  is  murdered  by  Hans  of  Pel- 
vorm,  ib.  ;  his  sons,  125 

Absalon,  Bishop,  gift  of  lands  to 
his  king,  92  ;  more  a  sailor  or 
soldier  than  a  churchman,  105  ; 
he  baptizes  the  heathen  for  two 
days  and  two  nights,  106 ;  the 
peasants  on  his  estates  rebel 
against  him,  107  ;  he  defeats 
them,  108 ;  his  victory  over 
the  Wends,  109  ;  his  learning 
and  labours,  ill  ;  what  he  did 
for  the  church,  ib. ;  his  death, 
ib. 

Adam,  canon  of  Bremen,  91  ;  his 
Chronicle,  ib. 

Adela,  Queen  of  Knud  the  Saint, 
her  flight  to  Bruges,  96 

Adolf,  Count  of  Holstein,  m  ;  de- 
feated by  Valdemar  II.,  113  ;  his 
victory  over  the  Danes,  119 

Adolf,  Duke  of  Holstein,  declines 
the  Danish  crown,  192 

,   King  of  Nortrmmbria,   puts 


Regner  Lodbrog  to  death,  28 ; 
he  is  tortured  and  killed,  29 

/Esir,  or  lesser  gods,  12,  76 

yEtheling  yElfred,  his  murder,  56 

^Ethelstan,  King  of  England,  his 
foster  child  Hakon,  70 

Agnes  of  Brandenburg,  Queen 
Regent  of  Denmark,  130,  131 

Aix-la-Chapelle  pillaged  by  Gorm,  40 

Albert  of  Mecklenburg,  his  pa- 
rentage, 141  ;  he  is  chosen  King 
of  Sweden,  165  ;  his  reign,  ib.  ; 
his  weakness  and  wars,  166 ;  Bo 
Jonsson  rules  for  him,  ib.  ;  new 
wars  and  troubles,  167  ;  his  de- 
feat by  Queen  Margaret,  167, 
178;  he  is  taken  prisoner  and 
tortured,  178  ;  his  punishment  for 
insulting  Margaret,  ib. ;  his  claims 
to  the  Danish  crown,  175,  177  ; 
his  release  from  prison,  179  ;  he 
dies  in  neglect  and  want,  167 

Albert  of  Orlamunde,  Duke  of 
North- Albingia,  114;  his  defeat 
and  imprisonment,  nS 

Albert  the  Younger,  grandson  of 
Valdemar  III.',  175,  177 

Albinensis,  Cardinal  Nicholas,  his 
mission  to  Sweden,  145 

Alexander  III.  of  Scotland,  defeats 
the  Norwegians,  171 

Alexius,  Greek  emperor,  and  Mag- 
nus Barfod,  152 


38o 


INDEX. 


Alfred  the  Great,  his  history  of 
Orosius,  7  ;  his  victories  over  the 
Vikingar,  29 

Altmark,  truce  of,  277 

Amager  Island  peopled  by  Flemish 
gardeners,  218 

Amber,  its  mythical  origin,  9  ;  beads 
of,  worn  by  Roman  ladies,  8 

America  discovered  by  Northern  ex- 
plorers, 73,  84 

Amlet,  the  story  of,  and  Shake- 
speare's "  Hamlet,"  22 

Angeln,  land  of  the  Angles,  19 

Angermannus,  Abraham,  Lutheran 
primate  of  Sweden,  263,  264 

Angles  in  Britain,  18,  19 

Anglesea,  subdued  by  Magnus  Bar- 
fod,  152 

Anglo-Saxons  in  Britain,  21  ;  they 
retain  their  northern  customs,  ib. 

Anna  Catherine,  first  Queen  of 
Christian  IV.,  255 

Anne,  Queen  of  James  I.  of  Eng- 
land, 249,  250 

Anscarius,  the  Apostle  of  the  North, 
goes  to  convert  the  Northmen, 
34  ;  his  want  of  success,  ib. ;  his 
labours  in  Sweden,  35  ;  he  is 
made  Archbishop  of  Hamburgh, 
ib.  ;  what  happens  to  him  there, 
ib. ;  his  death,  36 

Anund,  King  of  Sweden,  84 

Arcona  taken  by  the  Danes,  105  ;  the 
temple  of  Svanteveit  is  destroyed 
by  a  stratagem,  ib.  ;  the  demon 
that  the  Danes  said  they  saw,  106 

Arnfast,  Bishop  of  Aarhus,  127 

Arnulf,  King  of  Germany,  his  vic- 
tory over  the  Danes,  43 

Aryan  races,  13 

Asbjorn,  brother  of  Svend,  hi-> 
treachery,  90 

Aschloo,  camp  of  the  Northern 
rovers,  40,  41 

Asgaard,  home  of  the  gods,  12 

Autbert,  monk,  his  mission  to 
Slesvig,  34 

Axel  1 1  vide.      Sec  Bishop  Absalon. 


B. 


Baal  worshipped  in  the  North,  5 

Baglerne,  or  "the  Croziers,"  154 

Bauer,  John,  his  victory  at  \Vitt- 
stock,  286  ;  his  appearance  before 
Vienna,  ib.  ;  his  masterly  retreat, 
ib. ;  his  death,  ib, 

Beltanes,  midsummer-night  daiucs, 
6 

Benedict,  brother  of  Kmul  the 
Saint,  95 

Berangaria,  second  Queen  of  Val- 
demar  II.,  118,  120,  121 

Bernhard,  Duke  of  Saxe  Weimar, 
enters  the  service  of  France,  280  ; 
his  death,  ib. 

Berserkers,  why  so  called,  26 

Berthelsen,  Ivar,  his  imprisonment, 
247 

Birch  Legs,  or  Birke-bcnerne,  154 

Birger,  King  of  Sweden,  Torkcl 
Knudsson's  influence  for  good, 
160;  his  troubles  after  Torkel's 
death,  161  ;  lie  imprisons  his 
brothers  and  starves  them  to 
death,  161,  162  ;  anger  of  his 
people,  162  ;  he  flees  to  Den- 
mark, il>.  ;  his  son  is  beheaded, 
id. ;  his  death,  163. 

Birger  Brosa,  Jarl  of  the  Swedes 
and  Goths,  149  ;  his  son  chosen 
King  of  Sweden,  150;  his  anger 
at  the  choice,  150,  157;  Ivar's 
retorts,  157,  158;  he  submits, 
158;  his  rule  in  Sweden  ib.  ; 
his  laws  in  favour  of  women,  //'.  : 
his  death,  ib. 

Birke-benerne,  or  the  "  Birch  Legs," 
.154 

Bjarne,  Icelandic  navigator,  visits 
Greenland,  So 

Bjelke,  Gunilla,  second  wife  of 
Johan  III.,  259;  she  conceals  his 
death,  2(1 1 

Bjdrn,  Icel.indic  skald,  8S 

Bjorn,  King  of  Sweden,  sends  for 
Christian  monks  to  convert  his 


INDEX. 


people,  34  ;  his  reception  of  Ans- 
carius,  35 

Black  Death,  and  the  desolation  it 
caused,  85,  173;  the  "  Partridge," 

173 

Black  Henry.  See  Henry,  Duke  of 
Schwerin. 

Blanka  of  Namur,  Queen  of  Magnus 
Smek,  163,  173;  her  death,  139 

Bleking,  Swedish  province  of  Den- 
mark, 23,  38  ;  origin  of  its  name, 
23 ;  laid  waste  by  King  Erik  of 
Sweden,  246 

Blood-bath  at  Stockholm,  215,  216 

Bo  Jonsson,  rules  Sweden,  166  ;  lie 
slays  Karl  Nilsson  before  the 
altar,  ib. ;  his  death,  ib. 

Bondar  race  of  kings  in  Sweden, 
146,  147 

Ponder,  or  peasants  of  Denmark,  104 

Bornhoved,  battle  of,  119 

Botilda,  Queen  of  Denmark,  her 
death,  99 

Braga,  or  "  Good-health"  horn,  61 

Brahe,  Tycho,  the  great  astronomer, 
241  ;  his  observatory,  ib.  ;  he  is 
obliged  to  seek  safety  abroad,  249; 
he  seitles  and  dies  at  Prague,  ib. 

Brask,  Bishop,  his  speech,  233,  234 

Bravalla,  battle  of,  26,  27,  28 

Breakspear,  Nicholas,  his  mission  to 
Sweden,  145 

Breitenfeld,  battle  of,  279 

Bremen  Chronicle,  91 

Britain  visited  by  Pytheas,  3  ;  in- 
vaded by  the  Northmen,  17  ;  the 
Vikingar  expelled,  29  ;  invaded 
by  Svend  Tveskseg,  50 

Brodersen,  Abraham,  his  execution, 
181 

Bromsebro,  treaty  of,  254 

Brunnbak,  battle  of,  230 


Calmar  Act  of  Union,  180,  217 
Calmar  war,  269,  273,  274 


Casimir,  Johan,  appointed  director- 
general  of  Sweden,  278 

Charlemagne,  Charles  I.  of  Ger- 
many, his  wars  against  the  Saxons, 
20 ;  his  tomb  pillaged  by  the 
Northmen,  40 

Charles.      See  Karl. 

Charles  the  Dane,  Count  of  Flan- 
ders. See  Karl,  son  of  Knud. 

Charles  the  Fat,  Emperor  of  Ger- 
many, his  foolish  conduct  and 
cowardice,  40,  41,  43  ;  his  laws 
in  favour  of  the  Danes,  41  ;  de- 
feated at  Louvaine,  43 

Chersonesus  Cimbrica,  19,  22 

Christian  I.,  is  chosen  King  of 
Denmark,  192  ;  he  marries  the 
widowed  Queen  Dorothea,  ib.  ; 
he  obtains  the  crown  of  Sweden, 
195  ;  the  Swedes  rebel  and  defeat 
him,  196;  he  is  defeated  by  Sten 
Sture,  197  ;  his  character,  198  ; 
his  nickname,  199  ;  he  is  crowned 
in  Norway,  ib.  ;  his  schemes  for 
getting  money,  200  ;  the  union  of 
Slesvig  and  Holstein,  ib.  ;  anger 
of  the  Danes,  201  ;  he  loses  the 
Shetlands  and  Orkneys,  ib.  ;  his 
daughter  Margaret's  dowry,  202  ; 
his  misuse  of  money,  ib.  ;  his 
death,  203 

Christian  11.,  King  of  Denmark, 
his  birth,  212  ;  he  is  nearly  killed 
by  an  ape,  213  ;  how  lie  was 
brought  up,  ib.;  his  singing  in  the 
choirs  of  Copenhagen,  ib.  ;  his 
knowledge  of  Latin,  214  ;  his 
father's  use  of  the  rod,  ib.  ;  in 
Norway,  ib.  ;  he  invades  Sweden 
and  finally  becomes  king,  210, 
211,  215;  he  is  crowned  at 
Stockholm,  215  ;  his  massacre  of 
ninety  Swedish  nobles,  216  ;  his 
cruelty,  227,  230  ;  he  is  called 
"the  Tyrant,"  217  ;  some  of  I. is 
good  works,  ib.  ;  puts  down 
strand  rights,  218  ;  favours  culti- 
vation of  fruits  and  (lowers,  ib.; 


382 


INDEX. 


he  encourages  the  Reformers  for 
a  time,  219  ;  his  adviser,  Mother 
Sigbrit,  ib.  ;  he  puts  Torbe  Oxe 
to  death,  220  ;  the  fatal  glove,  ib. ; 
his  defeat  by  rebels,  221  ;  his  cap- 
tivity with  a  dwarf,  and  death 
seventeen  years  after,  ib. 

Christian  III.,  King  of  Denmark, 
his  feud  when  Count,  223  ;  lie  is 
proclaimed  king,  224  ;  puts  down 
the  Romish  Church,  tl>.  ;  estab- 
lishes the  Lutheran  faith,  ib.  ; 
persecutes  the  Calvinists,  225  ;  his 
death,  ib. ;  progress  of  the  country 
during  his  reign,  ib. 

Christian  IV.,  King  of  Denmark, 
his  minority,  249  ;  his  accom- 
plishments, 250  ;  his  love  for  the 
sea,  ib.  ;  his  visit  to  England,  ib. ; 
the  report  of  King  James's  cour- 
tiers, ib.  ;  war  with  Sweden  and 
Germany,  251,  253,  254  ;  his 
great  merits,  252  ;  he  revises  the 
laws,  il>.  ;  his  gallantry,  255  ;  his 
death,  ib,  ;  his  queens,  ib.  ;  how 
the  Danes  revere  his  memory, 
256  ;  his  wars  with  Sweden,  270, 
273,  287 

Christianity,  its  rise  and  progress  in 
Scandinavia,  31,  46,  49,  51,  82, 
143,  148,  155 

Christina,  daughter  of  Gustaf  Adolf, 
her  minority,  254,  278,  285 

Christopher,  son  of  Valdemar  II.. 
his  father  gives  him  Laaland  and 
Falster,  122  ;  he  is  chosen  King 
of  Denmark,  125  ;  his  disputes 
with  his  primate,  126  ;  he  is  ex- 
communicated, //'. ;  his  sudden 
death,  127 

Christopher  of  Bavaria,  elected 
King  of  Denmark,  188  ;  succeeds 
to  the  crowns  of  Norway  and 
Sweden,  188,  189,  193  ;  his  agree- 
ment with  Karl  Kmulsson,  189 ; 
his  queen,  ib.  ;  his  troubles  with 
his  people,  190  :  his  easy  temper, 
ib.  ;  Jutland  revolts,  //'.  ;  the  ways 


he  raised  money,  191  ;  his  death, 

ib. 

Christopher  II.,  how  he  was  brought 
up,  131  ;  he  arrests  the  primate, 
132  ;  he  is  proclaimed  king,  133  ; 
the  terms  imposed  on  him  by  his 
nobles,  134  ;  civil  wars,  ib. ;  he  is 
driven  out  of  his  kingdom,  ib.  ; 
his  death,  135  ;  his  contemptible 
character,  ib.  ;  his  sons,  136 

Cnut.      See  A'niiJ. 

Conrad,  the  Magister,  tutor  of 
Prince  Christian,  214 

Copenhagen,  its  site,  92  ;  attacked 
by  the  Hanscrs,  186 ;  improved 
by  Christian  IV.,  252 

Copenhagen  University,  its  opening, 
202  ;  its  reputation,  225 

Croziers,  or  Uaglernc,  154 


D. 

Dagmar,  or  "Day's  Maiden."  Sec 
Margrete  of  Bohemia. 

Dan,  King  of  the  Danes,  so-called 
founder  of  Danish  monarchy,  24  ; 
his  body  after  death,  ib. 

Danebod,  or  Danes'-hope.  See 
Queen  Thyra. 

Danes  in  early  times,  17  ;  of  Jut- 
land and  the  Isles,  21  ;  their 
rovings  in  King  Conn's  time, 
40 ;  the  booty  they  got  from 
Charles  the  Fat,  40,  41  ;  they 
besiege  Paris,  41,  42  ;  King 
Arnulf  defeats  them  at  Lotivainc, 
43  ;  how  they  were  intermingled 
with  the  Swedes,  65  ;  the  way 
they  chose  their  kings,  97,  104. 

'25 
Danneberg  Castle,  royal  captives  in. 

117,  n  8 
Dannebrog,     or    national   standard, 

"5 
Dannevirke,    or    Danish    outworks, 

47  ;  burnt,  40 
Danzig,     an     impostor    claims     the 


INDEX. 


383 


crown  of  Norway  and  is  executed 
at,  175. 

David,  Irish  monk,  148 

Denmark,  position  of,  22  ;  origin  of 
its  name,  23,  24  ;  names  of  its 
provinces,  23  ;  in  A.D.  871,  30  ; 
Christianity  in,  31,  46,  49,  51  ; 
visited  by  Anscarius,  34  ;  the  first 
King  of  all  Denmark,  36 ;  in 
early  times,  45  ;  its  first  Queen, 
ib.  ;  Kmid  and  his  sons,  51  ; 
joined  with  Norway  for  five  years, 
56,  57  ;  the  Estridsens,  89 ; 
descent  of  the  royal  family,  93  ; 
its  laws,  97,  120;  the  Valdemars, 
103  ;  civil  war  in  A.D.  1 147,  104  ; 
the  peasants  are  poor  and  power- 
less, ib.  ;  prosperity  of  the  coun- 
try under  the  Valdemars,  109, 
113  ;  its  history  from  A.D.  1202 
to  A.D.  1259,  113;  first  appear- 
ance of  the  national  standard, 
115  ;  a  century  of  troubles,  122  ; 
the  burgher  classes  send  repre- 
sentatives to  the  Danehof,  125  ; 
differences  between  Church  and 
State,  126;  from  A.D.  1259  to 
A.D.  1387,  128;  decline  of  the 
royal  power,  130  ;  under  an  in- 
terdict, 126,  133;  the  credit  of 
the  country  revives,  136  ;  without 
a  king  for  four  years,  140  ;  union 
with  Sweden  and  Norway,  168, 
180  ;  from  A.D.  1412  to  A.D. 
1448,  183  ;  and  Sweden,  from 
A.D.  1450,  198;  crown  bartered 
for  favours,  203  ;  its  history 
from  A.D.  1500,  212;  the 
Swedish  crown  lost,  215,  231  ; 
the  Reformers  in,  219,  222, 
224  ;  the  Count's  Feud,  223  ; 
from  A.D.  1559  to  A.D.  1648, 
244  ;  its  dec  ine,  254  ;  wars 
with  Sweden,  239,  244,  251,  254, 
287 

Didrik  Slaghcek,  Regent  of  Sweden, 
229 

Ditmarshes,  inhabitants  of  the,  205  ; 


their  courage,  ib. ;  their  rebellions, 
119,  206,  207,  244,  245 
Donsk  tunga,  or  Danish  tongue,  59 
Dorothea  of  Brandenburg,    marries 
King  Christopher,    189 ;    re-mar- 
ries King  Christian,  192 
Dyveke,    or  the    Dove,   her   death, 
220 

E. 

Ebbo,  Archbishop  of  Rheims,  his 
mission  to  Jutland,  32 

Edmund  Gammal,  King  of  Sweden, 
84,  144 

Egede,  Hans,  his  mission  to  Green- 
land, 85 

Egede,  Paul,  Greenland  missionary, 

85 

Egnen,  battle  of,  276 
Ejnar,  son  of  Jarl  Rognvald,  69 
Ejsten,  King  of  Norway,  his  reign, 

152  ;  his  death,  153 
Elizabeth,     Countess    of    Holstein, 

seeks  aid  from  Queen  Margaret, 

181 
Elizabeth,  Princess  of  Holstein-Got- 

torp,    seized  by  Valdemar  Atter- 

dag,     138,      139,     164  ;    Magnus 

Srnek  offers  to  marry  her,  139 
Elizabeth,    Queen  of  England,   her 

suitor  Erik,  237 
Emma,  Queen,  her  conspiracy,  52  ; 

her  conduct  during  her  son's  reign, 

55 
Englebrecht  Englebrechtsson  heads 

a  rebellion  against  Erik,  186  ;  his 

conduct  to  the  bishops,  ib.  ;  he  is 

murdered,   187 
Enkoping,  battle  of,  165 
Erik   Blod-oxe,   his  harsh  rule,  77  ; 

he  is  dethroned  and  driven  out  of 

the  country,   78  ;  his  sons  invade 

Norway,  79 
Erik,  Duke  of  Slesvig,  defeats  the 

Royal  troops,  129 
Erik  Ejegod,  King  of  Denmark,  98  ; 

his  beauty  and  great  skill  in  arts 


INDEX. 


and  exercises,  ib. ;  his  pilgrimages, 
99  ;  he  and  his  queen  die  on  the 
way  to  Jerusalem,  ib.  ;  the  grief 
of  the  Danes  at  his  death,  ib. 

Erik  Emun,  revenges  his  brother's 
murder,  101  ;  he  is  raised  to  the 
throne  of  Denmark,  103  ;  he 
causes  his  brother  with  his  ten 
sons  to  be  murdered,  104 

Erik  Eriksson  Lcespe,  last  of  the 
Bondar  kings,  148,  149 ;  his 
death,  150 

Erik  Clipping,  King  of  Denmark, 
his  minority,  129  ;  he  is  im- 
prisoned by  Duke  Erik  of  Slesvig, 
ib.  ;  he  pays  a  fine  to  Erlandsen, 
ib.  ;  his  evil  habits,  130  ;  he  is 
slain  in  a  bam,  ib. 

Erik  Graafell,  son  of  Erik  Blod-oxe, 

79 

Erik  Johansson  Vasa,  his  execution, 
216,  228 

Erik  Knudsson,  King  of  Sweden, 
his  marriage,  149  ;  he  is  the  first 
king  crowned  by  the  clergy,  ib.  ; 
his  death,  ib. 

Erik  Menved,  King  of  Denmark, 
his  minority,  130  ;  how  he  was 
brought  up,  131  ;  his  useless  wars, 
ib.  ;  he  misrules  his  kingdom  and 
quarrels  with  the  clergy,  132  ;  the 
loss  of  his  infant  children,  133  ; 
his  death,  ib. 

Erik  of  1'omerania,  his  adoption  by 
Queen  Margaret,  176;  he  is  ap- 
pointed her  successor,  168,  174, 
176  ;  he  is  crowned  joint  King  at 
Calmar,  179;  his  incapacity,  180; 
he  executes  Abraham  Brodcrsen, 
181  ;  his  war  with  Holstein,  181, 
184,  185,  1 86  ;  he  rules  alone, 

183  ;  his  incapacity  is  confirmed, 

184  ;  his  appeal  to  the  Emperor 
Sigismuncl,    185  ;  his   pilgrimage, 
ib.  ;  he  is  taken  prisoner,  /'/;.  ;  his 
English   queen,   ib.  ;  he   loses  his 
three  kingdoms,    186,    187,    188  ; 
his  death,  1 88 


Erik  Plov-peng,  King  of  Denmark, 
his  quarrels  with  his  brothers, 
who  refuse  to  do  him  homage, 
122,  123  ;  he  makes  war  against 
the  pagans,  123  ;  why  he  was 
called  "  Plov-peng,"  ib.  ;  he  is 
murdered,  ib.  •  how  his  body  was 
discovered,  124 

Erik  Pneste-hader,  King  of  Nor- 
way, his  troubled  reign,  172  ; 
death  of  his  daughter  Margrete, 
ib. 

Erik  Raudi  discovers  Greenland,  84  ; 
his  son  brings  monks  to  Green- 
land, 85  ;  he  declines  to  return 
with  his  son,  86 

Erik  Sejrsoel,  King  of  the  Svea,  82 

Erik,  son  of  Gustaf,  is  proclaimed 
King  of  Sweden,  237  ;  his  woo- 
ings,  237—239  ;  his  violent  tem- 
per, 238  ;  he  quarrels  with  his 
brother  Johan,  ib.  ;  the  Seven 
Years'  War,  239,  245,  246  ;  his 
cruelty  to  the  Stures,  240  ;  his 
fits  of  insanity,  240,  241  ;  his 
submission  to  Karren  Mannsdat- 
ter,  240 ;  he  marries  her,  241  ; 
his  deposition,  ib.  ;  his  miseries 
and  death  by  poison,  242  ;  hi.i 
love  for  his  wife,  243  ;  his  sons, 
ib. 

Erik,  son  of  Magnus  Ladu-'aas,  his 
quarrels  with  King  Birger,  160  ; 
he  is  imprisoned  and  starved  to 
death,  161,  1(12 

Erik,  son  of  Magnus  Smek,  rebels 
agiinst  his  father,  164  ;  his  sudden 
death,  ib. 

Erik,  son  of  Valdemar  of  Sweden, 
159 

Erik  the  Lamb,  King  of  Denmark, 
who  spent  his  time  with  the 
monks,  104 

Erik  the  Saint,  is  chosen  King  of 
Sweden,  146;  the  three  tilings  he 
laid  to  heart,  ib.  •  his  laws  in 
favour  of  women,  ib.  ;  his  crusade 
against  the  Finns,  147  ;  he  is 


I-NDEX. 


385 


slain  by  the  Danes,  ib.  •  his  re- 
mains honoured  as  relics,  ib. 
Erik's  course,  or  royal  progress,  157 
Erlandsen,  Jacob,   primate  of  Den- 
mark,   126  ;  he  is  imprisoned  by 
King    Christopher,    ib.  ;    his    re- 
lease, 129  ;  a  fine  paid  to  him,  ib. 
Eskil,  Archbishop  of  Lund,  108 
Esthonia,     religious   wars    in,    1 14, 

"5-  i23 

Estrid,  sister  to  Knud,  53  ;  she 
marries  Robert,  Duke  of  Nor- 
mandy, 54 

Estridsen  race  of  kings,  89 

Europe,  ancient  ideas  of  Northern, 
i,  8 

Ey-Gotaland,  or  Insular  Goths'  land, 
'19,  22,  59 

Eyrbygga  Saga,  74 


F. 

Falkoping,  battle  of,  167 

P"aro  Islands  discovered  by  the  Nor- 
wegians, 67 

Femern,  Island  of,  its  inhabitants 
defeat  King  Erik,  184 

Finland  united  to  Sweden,  147  ; 
crusade  in,  150  ;  War  of  Clubs, 
265 

Floki  Rafn,  a  Norwegian,  discovers 
Iceland,  73 

Fodevig,  battle  of,  101 

Folkungar  race  of  Swedish  kings, 
149,  156 

F raise  andOfralse  classes  in  Sweden, 

159 
France  ravaged  by  the  Northmen, 

41,  42 
Frederick   Barbarossa,    Emperor  of 

Germany,    and   Knud  VI.,    109  ; 

he  stirs  up  strife  in  Denmark,  1 10, 

III 
Frederick  I.,  King  of  Denmark,  his 

ambition   when    Prince,   203  ;  his 

bad   advice,    204  ;    his   war  with 

the  Ditmarshers,  206,  207  ;  he  is 


chosen  king,  220  ;  defeats  King 
Christian,  221  ;  his  conduct  and 
reign,  221,  222  ;  his  death,  and 
the  feud  which  followed,  223 

Frederick  II.,  King  of  Denmark, 
his  campaign  against  the  Dit- 
marshers, 244,  245  ;  his  corona- 
tion, 245  ;  the  Seven  Years'  War, 
245,  246  ;  his  intolerance,  247  ; 
the  great  men  of  his  reign,  248  ; 
his  death.  249  ;  his  daughter 
Anne,  ib. 

Freia,  Finnish  goddess,  1 1 

Frey-Yngve,  King  of  Sweden,  60  ; 
the  last  of  the  gods,  61 

Frode,  King  of  the  Danes,  his 
golden  bracelets,  24  ;  his  vic- 
tories, 25 


G. 

Gait,    Admiral   Peter,    allows    the 

Swedes  to  escape,  255 
Gardar,  a  Swede,  discovers  Iceland, 

73 

Garderike.      See  Russia. 
Geert,    Count    of    Holstein,    expels 

King   Christopher  II.,    134  ;    his 

influence  in  Denmark,   ib.  ;  he  is 

slain  by  Niels  Ebbeson,  135  ;  his 

son  avenges  him,  ib. 
Gerhard,   Count  of   Holstein.      See 

Count  Geert. 
Gerhard  VI.,  Count  of  Holstein,  his 

death,  181 
Gods  of  the  Scandinavians,  n.  See 

Odin  and  Thor. 
Godwine,    Earl,    murders   ^Etheling 

Alfred,  56  ;  gives  a  ship  to  Har- 

thaknud,  ib. 
Goran   Persson,    favourite   of   King 

Erik,  tortured  and  put  to  death, 

240,  241 
Gorm   the    Old,    first    King   of    all 

Denmark,  his  birth  and  descent, 

36  ;  how  he  was  brought  up,  37  ; 

his  kingdom  of  Lejre,  ib.  ;  a  chief 
C   C 


386 


INDEX. 


priest  of  Odin,  37,  38  ;  how  he 
extended  his  rule,  38  ;  his  rovings, 
40,  41  ;  he  besieges  Paris,  41,  42  ; 
Queen  Thyra  rules  in  his  absence, 
45  ;  nicknamed  the  "  Church's 
worm,"  46  ;  his  war  with,  and 
defeat  by,  Henry  the  Fowler  of 
Germany,  ib.  ;  he  tolerates  Chris- 
tianity, il>.  ;  how  he  was  told 
of  his  son's  death,  47  ;  he  dies 
of  grief,  48  ;  his  grave  mound, 
ib. 
Gospel  first  preached  in  the  north, 

32 

Gota  Hofratt,  Swedish  court  of  law, 
285 

Gofa-land,  or  land  of  the  Goths,  63 

Gotfred's  Wall,  47 

Goth's  land,  Chersonesus  Cimbrica 
of  the  Romans,  19 

Goths  in  Scandinavia,  10  ;  their 
language,  13  ;  their  letters,  14 

Gothus,  Archbishop,  his  character, 
258 

Grand,  Johan,  Primate  of  Denmark, 
132;  he  is  arrested  and  im- 
prisoned, ib.  ;  his  escape  to  Rome, 
ib. 

Greenland  discovered  by  Erik  Raucli, 
84 ;  settled  by  Norwegians  and 
Icelanders,  ib.  ;  monks  baptize  all 
the  people,  85  ;  sad  fate  of  the 
colony,  ib.  ;  Hans  Egede  labours 
and  dies  there,  ib.  ;  its  Danish 
settlements,  86 

Gudleif,  an  Icelander,  is  taken  pri- 
soner in  Vinland,  87  ;  he  returns 
with  gifts,  88 

Guld-Harald,  how  he  slew  Ilarald 
Graafell,  48  ;  his  murder,  49 

Gulc-laws    of    Thorleif    the    Wise, 

77 

Gustaf,  son  of  Erik,  243 

Gustaf  Eriksson,  known  as  Vasci, 
King  of  Sweden,  his  birth,  family, 
and  early  school  life,  228  ;  how 
he  escaped  the  Danes,  ib.  ;  the 
peasants  ill-treat  him,  but  after- 


wards repent,  228,  229 ;  the  be- 
ginning of  his  army,  229 ;  his 
first  flag,  ib.  ;  he  defeats  the 
Danes,  230  ;  fate  of  his  mother 
and  sisters,  230,  231  ;  bis  letter 
to  the  Christian  princes,  231  ;  he 
is  proclaimed  king,  //;.  ;  his  coro- 
nation, 232  ;  state  of  Stockholm, 
Hi.  ;  his  want  of  money,  ib.  ;  he 
puts  down  the  Romish  Church 
and  seizes  its  property,  232,  233, 
235  ;  he  favours  the  Reformers, 
il>.  •  his  threat  to  leave  Sweden, 
and  its  effect,  234  ;  he  establishes 
the  power  of  the  crown,  235  ;  his 
restless  activity,  ib.  ;  his  family 
troubles,  237  ;  he  divides  his 
kingdom,  ib.  ;  his  death  and 
burial-place,  ib. 

Gustaf  II.,  Adolf,  his  birth,  educa- 
tion, learning,  and  early  practice 
of  government,  272,  273  ;  he  is 
invested  with  sword  and  shield, 

273  ;    and  the  Calmar  war,   273, 

274  ;    he    is    chosen    king,    274 ; 
his  war  with   Russia,    274,   275 ; 
peace,    275  ;    his  careful   govern- 
ment of   the    kingdom,    and    the 
reforms   he    effected,    275,     276  ; 
his   war   with    Poland,    276  ;     his 
narrow  escapes,   //;.  ;  he  helps  his 
Protestant  allies  in  Germany,  277, 
278,   279  ;   he  takes  leave  of  the 
Diet,   and   confides   his    daughter 
to  the  Council,  278  ;  the  battle  of 
Hreitenfeld,    279  ;     the    battle   of 
Liit7.en,    280,     281  ;     his    death, 
282,  283  ;    victory  of  the  Swedes, 
283  ;    his    body    recovered,    ib.  ; 
and    embalmed,    284  ;    his    heart 
enclosed    in    a    casket    and    kept 
by    his    i]ueen,    ;'/'.  ;     monument, 
ib.  ;     his    appearance,     ib.  ;      his 
friends,  28=; 

Gustaf  Trolle,  Archbishop,  his 
treachery,  210,  215  ;  he  demands 
reparation  for  having  lost  his  see, 
216 


INDEX. 


387 


Guttorm,  the  child-king  of  Norway, 

155 

Gyllenstjerna,  Erik's  envoy  to  Eliza- 
beth, 238,  239 


H. 

Hafursfjord,  sea-battle  of,  68 
Hakon  ^Ethelstane-fostre,  son  of 
Harald  Haarfager,  70 ;  he  is 
placed  on  the  knees  of  King 
yEthelstan,  tb.  ;  his  good  training 
in  England,  71  ;  his  laws,  77,  78  ; 
becomes  King  of  Norway,  78  ; 
his  reign,  ib.  ;  his  subjects  refuse 
to  become  Christians,  ib.  ;  Sigurd 
Jarl  tries  to  screen  him,  ib.  ;  his 
defeat  and  death,  79 
Hakon  Jarl,  King  of  Norway,  and 
Harald,  48  ;  his  treachery,  49, 

79 

Hakon  III.,  King  of  Norway,  his 
brief  reign,  154  ;  he  is  murdered, 
ib. 

Hakon  IV.,  King  of  Norway,  his 
accession,  155  ;  his  character, 
169  ;  his  wars,  170  ;  he  defeats 
Skule  liaardsson  at  Oslo,  ib.  ;  his 
fame  in  distant  lands,  ib.  ;  he 
subdues  and  annexes  Iceland,  ib.  ; 
his  invasion  of  Scotland,  171  ;  he 
is  defeated  at  Largs,  ib. ;  his  death, 
ib. 

Hakon  V.,  King  of  Norway,  his 
reign,  172  ;  his  successor,  173 

Hakon  VI.,  King  of  Norway,  mar- 
ries the  Princess  Margaret,  139. 
164  ;  succeeds  to  the  throne,  172, 
173  ;  his  death,  142 

Halfden  Svarte,  Small  King,  of  Nor- 
way, 67 

Hamburgh,  created  an  archbishop- 
ric, 35  ;  burnt  by  the  Northmen, 
il>. 

Hans,  King  of  Denmark,  203  ;  is 
chosen  King  of  Norway,  203, 


208  ;  Prince  Frederick's  ambi- 
tion, 203  ;  the  king  follows  his 
bad  advice,  204  ;  he  conquers 
and  loses  Sweden,  ib.  ;  his  queen 
imprisoned  in  Sweden,  205  ; 
and  Sten  Sture,  209  ;  campaign 
against  the  Ditmarshers,  206  ;  he 
is  defeated,  207  ;  his  only  suc- 
cessful war,  ib.  ;  his  death,  tb.  ; 
how  he  brought  up  his  son,  212, 
213,  214 

Hans  of  Pelvorm,  he  slays  King 
Abel,  124 

Hansers  secure  fisheries,  and  forbid 
royal  servants  to  fish,  132  ;  their 
quarrel  with  Valdemar  Atterdag, 

137  ;    they  are  insulted  by  him, 

138  ;  admitted  to  electoral  rights, 
140  ;  attack  Copenhagen,  186 

Harald  Blaatand,  King  of  Den- 
mark, his  cruelty  and  craft,  48  ; 
his  profession  of  Christianity,  49  ; 
he  is  defeated  by  Otho  I.  of  Ger- 
many, ib.  \  his  death,  50 

Harald  Gille  Magnusson,  goes 
through  the  ordeal  of  a  red-hot 
iron,  and  is  owned  by  the  king  as 
his  brother,  153  ;  his  joint  reign, 
ib.  ;  he  blinds  his  fellow-king, 
154;  he  is  strangled  in  his  bed, 
ib. 

Harald  Graafell,  King  of  Norway, 
his  death,  48 

Harald  Haardraade,  King  of  Nor- 
way, harasses  the  Danes,  90  ;  his 
wish  to  invade  Denmark,  150  ; 
his  adventures  in  the  East,  15'!; 
his  escape  from  prison,  i>>.  ;  his 
marriage,  ib.  ;  his  invasion  of 
England  and  deatli  at  Stamford 
Bridge,  ib. 

Harald  Ilaarfager,  first  King  of  all 
Norway,  68;  his  oath,  ib.  ;  his 
severity  to  the  Norwegians,  ib.  ; 
he  condemns  Rollo  the  Norman 
as  an  outlaw,  69  ;  his  family 
troubles,  70  ;  he  dies  at  a  great 
age,  ib.  ;  his  gift  of  a  gold-beaked 
C  C  2 


333 


INDEX. 


ship  to  King  ^thelstan,    71  ;    a 
result  of  his  stern  rule,  72 

Harald  Harefoot,  King  of  England, 
55  ;  his  reign,  ib.  ;  his  body  dis- 
interred, 56 

Harald  Ilejn,  King  of  Denmark, 
his  reign,  and  why  he  was  called 
"  Hejn,"  94 

Harald  Hildetand,  King  of  the 
Danes,  slain  by  Odin,  27 

Ilarald  Kesia,  son  of  Erik  Ejegod, 
IOO  ;  his  murder,  104 

Harald  Klak,  King  of  the  Danes, 
his  conversion,  baptism,  and 
sponsors,  33  ;  the  oath  he  took, 
ib.  ;  his  many  presents,  il>.  ;  he 
returns  to  the  Emperor's  court,  34 

Harald,  son  of  Sweyn,  King  of 
Denmark,  51 

Hardegon,  or  Hardeknud,  King  of 
Lejre,  36 

Harthaknud,  his  mother  conspires  to 
get  him  the  Danish  throne,  52  ; 
his  reign,  55  ;  his  liberality  to  the 
clergy,  ib.  ;  his  hatred  of  his 
brother  Harald,  ib.  ;  Earl  God- 
wine  gives  him  a  ship,  56  ;  his 
death,  ib. 

Iledeby.      See  Slei~<ig. 

Heinriksson,  Johan,  murderer  of 
King  Erik,  242 

Ilejde,  battle  of,  245 

Ilelge,  a  Danish  king,  26 

Hemming  Gade,  Bishop  of  Lin- 
kbping,  210 

Hemmingen,  Nils,  his  persecution, 
247 

Henrik,  first  archbishop  in  Sweden, 
147  ;  his  zeal  and  death,  il>. 

Henry,  Count  of  Holstein,  the 
"  Iron  Count,"  135 

Henry,  Count  Duke  of  Schwerin, 
his  hatred  of  Valdemar  II.,  115  ; 
he  seizes  the  king  and  his  son, 
and  imprisons  them  in  Danneberg 
Castle,  116;  the  terms  upon 
which  he  released  them,  118  ;  the 
Pope's  message  to  him,  119 


Hi  nry  of  Neustria,  attempts  to  re- 
lieve Paris,  42 ;  is  defeated,  43 
Henry    I.,    Emperor   of    Germany, 
surnamed     the     Fowler,     defeats 
Gorm,  46 

Herjar-Thing,  or  Icelandic  assize,  75 
Ilinze,     Canon     George,     tutor    of 

Prince  Christian,  213 
Ilolmgang,  or  fight  on  an  island,  74 
Holstein,    beginning  of  the   Slesvig 
wars,  126  ;  its  Counts  and  Chris- 
topher II.,    134,    135  ;  wars  with 
Denmark,    134,    135,    140;    with 
Sweden,    181,    184 — 1 86  ;    union 
with  Slesvig,  200 
Hother,  slain  by  Stasrkodder,  25 
Hyperboreans,    or    Outside    North- 
winders.  I 


I. 


Iceland  first  visited  between  86 1 
and  868,  73  ;  reported  to  be  a 
land  of  mountain  giants,  ib.  ;  the 
Norwegians  revisit  it,  ib.  ;  its 
settlement  by  Ingolf,  74  ;  Thorolf 
brings  an  image  of  Thor  and 
takes  formal  possession  of  the 
country,  74,  75  ;  he  builds  a 
temple,  75  ;  he  founds  the  "  Her- 
jar-Thing,'' ;/'.  ;  the  island  is 
divided  into  district^,  76  ;  a  code 
of  laws  prepared  by  Ullljot,  ib.  ; 
a  republic  for  300  years,  77  ; 
cruel  wars  for  the  mastery,  ib.  ;  is 
annexed  to  Norway,  171 

Inge  Baardsen,  King  of  Norway, 
his  troubled  reign,  155 

Ingeborg,  daughter  of  Valdemar 
Attcrdag.  her  marriage  and 
death,  141 

Ingeborg,  Queen  of  Denmark,  her 
great  grief,  133 

Ingjnld  Ill-raada,  burns  the  six 
Small  Kings,  61  ;  his  death  with 
his  daughter  Aasa,  ib. ;  his  chil- 
dren expelled,  62 


Ingolf,  leaves  Norway  for  Iceland, 
74  ;  he  throws  the  consecrated 
door-posts  of  his  house  into  the 
sea,  ib.  ;  he  lands  at  and  founds 
Reykiavik,  ib. 

Ireland,  settlements  made  by  the 
Northmen  in,  70 ;  invaded  by 
Magnus  Barfod,  152 

Ivan  Vasilievitsch  II.  of  Russia,  his 
war  with  Sweden,  246,  262 

Ivar  Blaa,  and  the  election  of  King 
Valdemar,  157  ;  his  answer  to 
Birder,  157,  158 

Ivar  Vidfadme,  King  of  Svea,  64 


Jacob  Andreas,  professor  at  Tubin- 
gen, 247 
James   I.    of   England,   his   Queen, 

249  ;    Christian    IV.    visits    him, 

250  ;  Charles   IX.    sends  an  em- 
bassy to  him,  270 

Jaukuwitz,  battle  of,  287 

Jellyfish,  or  Medusa,  called  "  Lung 
of  the  Sea,"  4 

Johan,  nephew  of  Charles  IX.,  he 
declines  the  regency,  274 

Johnn,  son  of  Gustaf,  his  marriage, 
238  ;  he  and  his  wife  are  im- 
prisoned by  his  brother,  ib. ;  he 
escapes  and  rebels,  241  ;  causes 
his  brother  to  be  poisoned,  242 

Johan,  son  of  Sverker  Karlsson, 
145  ;  his  death,  149 

Johan  III.,  crowned  King  of  Sweden 
on  deposition  of  his  brother,  258  ; 
his  suspicion  of  Duke  Karl,  ib.  ; 
his  learning  and  zeal  for  Catho- 
licism, ib.  ;  his  liturgy,  259  ;  the 
Pope  disapproves  of  his  conduct, 
ib.  ;  his  second  wife  and  conse- 
quent change  of  views,  ib.  ;  the 
miseries  of  his  reign,  260  ;  his 
son  succeeds  to  the  Polish  crown, 
ib.  ;  he  imprisons  most  of  his 


council,  ib.  ;  his  death,  261  ;  the 

Queen's  conduct,  ib. 
Jornsbo.rg,  pagan  republic  of,  5° 
Jons  Bengtsson,   Archbishop,  rebels 

against  Karl  Knudsson,  195  ;  he 

is  arrested  by  Christian,  196  ;  he 

defeats  Christian,  ib. 
Jorde  bog,    or  "  Book   of  Lands," 

120 

Jutland,  South.      See  Slesvig. 
Jutland    and    the    Isles,    Danes  of, 

21  ;    revolt   against   Christopher, 

190 

Jury,  trial  by,  120 
Jutes,  their  origin,  1 8  ;  they  found 

a  kingdom    in   Kent,    19  ;    their 

language,  ib. 
Jutta,  daughter  of  Erik  Plov-peng, 

158 


Ksempeviser,  or  Danish  rhyming 
verses,  121,  248 

Karl,  a  peasant,  story  of  him  and 
King  Svend,  90 

Karl,  Duke.     See  Karl  IX. 

Karl  Knudsson,  Erik  appoints  him 
Marshal,  187  ;  proclaimed  King 
of  Sweden,  ib.  ;  he  exacts  terms 
from  Christopher,  189,  193  ;  his 
influence  in  Sweden,  193  ;  he 
goes  to  Finland,  194  ;  he  is 
crowned  King  of  Sweden,  ib.  ; 
and  of  Norway,  ib.  ;  his  enemies, 
195  ;  he  leaves  his  kingdom,  ib.  ; 
he  is  recalled,  196 ;  his  death, 
ib. 

Karl  Nilsson,  is  murdered  by  Bo 
Jonsson,  166 

Karl,  son  of  Knud  the  Saint,  his 
fate,  96 

Karl  IX.  of  Sweden,  deposes  Erik, 
258  ;  his  abilities  and  zeal  for 
Protestantism,  258,  267,  268  ;  on 
the  death  of  Johan  he  conducts 
the  government,  261  ;  he  sum- 
mons the  assembly  at  Upsala, 


390 


INDEX. 


ib.  ;  Sigismund's  return,  263  ; 
Karl  as  Regent,  265  ;  he  defeats 
Sigismund  at  Stangebro,  ib.  ;  he 
subdues  Finland,  266  ;  is  pro- 
claimed king,  ib.  ;  his  learning, 
character  and  conduct,  267,  268  ; 
he  improves  the  country,  268, 
269  ;  his  foreign  wars,  269  ;  his 
death,  ib.  •  his  alliances  with 
Protestant  powers,  270 ;  as  a 
poet  and  author,  ib.  ;  his  family, 
271 

Katerina,  daughter  of  Charles  IX., 
271 

Katerina  Jagellonica,  Queen  of 
Johan  III.,  258  ;  her  death, 
259  ;  and  Ivan  II.  of  Russia, 
262 

Kimbri,  and  the  Romans,  7 

Kings,  Pontiff,  of  Scandinavia,  63 

Klas  Fleming,  governor  of  Finland, 
263,  265 

Knipperdolling,  an  Anabaptist, 
driven  out  of  Sweden,  233 

Knud  Uan-Ast,  son  of  Gorm,  46  ; 
his  death,  47 

Knud  Lavard,  his  murder  by  prince 
Magnus,  100 ;  the  vengeance 
taken  by  his  brother,  101 

Knud  the  Great,  his  Christianity, 
51,  52  ;  he  murders  his  brother- 
in-law,  Ulf  Jarl,  52  ;  his  remorse, 
53  ;  he  pays  his  sister  Estnd  a 
blood-fine,  ib.  ;  he  brings  up  his 
nephew,  Svend,  54  ;  his  death, 
ib.\  his  conquests,  *$.  ;  the  fate  o( 
his  sons,  il>.  ;  his  share  in  tin- 
defeat  of  Olaf  the  Saint,  So 

Knud  the  Saint,  King  of  Denmark, 
his  character,  94;  his  severity  to 
pirates,  ib.  ;  ho\v  he  favoured  the 
clergy  and  oppressed  the  laity, 
95  ;  the  result  of  his  conduct, 
ib.  ;  his  murder  and  the  fate  of  his 
only  son  Karl,  96  ;  his  canoniza- 
tion, 96,  99 

Knud  VI.,  King  of  Denmark,  defies 
the  Emperor  of  Germany,  109  ; 


his  great  successes,  no  ;  a  re- 
bellion in  Slesvig  is  put  down, 
ib.  ;  his  disputes  with  Philip 
Augustus  of  France,  Hi;  his 
death,  ib. 

Konungr,  northern  name  for  King, 
20 

Kristina,  second  wife  of  Charles 
IX.,  271  ;  declines  the  regency, 

,274 
Krumpe,     Otte,      Danish     general, 

211,  215,  246 


Largs,  the  battle  of,  171 

Laurcntius  Andrea.-,  Gustafs  chan 
cellor,  232  ;  the  address  he  read 
to  the  Diet,  233 

Laws  of  Thorleif  the  Wise  and 
Ulfljot,  77  ;  of  Denmark,  97, 
120,  252  ;  of  Sweden,  160 

Leahy,  battle  of,  178 

Leif,  son  of  Erik  Raiuli,  84  ;  he 
sails  from  Greenland,  85  ;  hi> 
discoveries,  86  ;  his  death,  87 

Lejre,  or  Ledra,  in  the  Island  of 
Sjivlland,  21  ;  its  kings  and  their 
influence  as  pontiff-kings,  22,  38, 
63  ;  how  Ilardegon  and  Gorm 
ascended  the  throne,  37  ;  iu 
sacred  character,  37,  63 

Lena,  battle  of,  149 

Lenbelfing,  August  von,  witnesses 
the  death  of  Gustaf  Adolf,  282  ; 
his  death,  283 

Lochlin,  the  men  of,    70 

Louis  I.  of  France,  surnamed  I.c 
Debonnaire,  his  wish  to  convert 
the  heathen,  32  ;  stands  sponsor 
to  Ilarald  Klak,  3^  ;  sends  mis- 
sionaries to  Denmark,  33,  34 

Louis  IX.  of  France,  sends  an 
embassy  to  I  [akon  IV.,  170 

Louvainc,  battle  of,  43 

I.iibeck,  treaty  of,  254 


INDEX. 


Liibeck  Traders,  their  defeat  by  the 

Danes,  207 

Lund,  capital  of  Skaania,  64  ;  Arch- 
bishopric of,  23,  145 
Lung  of  the  Sea,  its  meaning,  4 
Lutheran  faith  established  in  Den- 
mark, 224  ;  in  Sweden,  232,  233, 
235,  261 

Liitzen,  battle  of,  280 
Lyo,  the  fatal  hunt  on,  116 


M. 

Mads,  Bishop,  of  Strangnces,  his 
execution,  216 

Magdeburg,  siege  of,  279 

Magnus  Barfod,  King  of  Norway, 
his  wars,  152  ;  he  marries 
Margrete,  the  "  Peace  Maiden," 
ili.  ;  he  invades  Ireland  and  is 
slain,  ib. 

Magnus,  brother  of  Erik,  his  in- 
sanity, 241 

Magnus,  brother  of  Frederick  II., 
246 

Magnus  Henriksen,  attacks  the 
Swedes  at  Upsala,  147 

Magnus  Laclu-laas,  seizes  on  Val- 
demar,  159;  his  able  reign,  ib.  ; 
his  merits  as  a  law-giver,  ib.  ;  his 
nickname,  ib.  ;  he  ranks  men  as 
free  and  un-free,  ib.  ;  establishes 
the  service  of  russ-tjenst,  160  • 
his  court,  ib.  ;  he  supports  the 
church,  ib.  ;  his  death  and  burial- 
place,  ib. 

Magnus  Laga-bceter,  King  of 
Norway  and  the  Hebrides,  I/I  ; 
as  a  law-giver,  172 

Magnus  Smek,  son  of  Duke  Erik, 
offers  to  marry  Princess  Elizabeth, 
139  ;  is  chosen  King  of  Sweden 
and  Norway,  163  ;  his  minority, 
ib.  ;  his  vicious  conduct  and 
weakness,  ib.  •  his  Queen,  163, 
164  ;  his  son  Erik  killed,  164  ; 


Hakon  made  King  of  Norway, 
ib.  ;  his  friendship  for  Valdemar 
Atterdag  of  Denmark,  ib.  ;  he 
gives  up  Skaania  and  other 
provinces,  ib.  •  he  outlaws  twenty- 
four  nobles,  165;  what  they  do, 
ib.  ;  his  fate,  ib  ;  the  respect  of 
the  Norwegians  for  him,  173 

Magnus,  son  of  Birger,  is  treacher- 
ously beheaded,  162,  163 

Magnus,  son  of  Neils, murders  Knud 
Lavard,  100 ;  he  is  slain  at 
Fodevig,  101 

Magnus  the  Blind,  King  of  Norway, 
his  troubled  reign,  153 ;  he  is 
killed  in  battle,  154 

Magnus  the  Good,  King  of  Den- 
mark and  Norway,  his  kindness  to 
Svend,  57,  81  ;  his  death,  ib. 

Man,  Isle  of,  subdued  by  Magnus 
Barfod,  152 

Mannsdatter,  Karren  or  Katherina, 
wife  of  King  Erik,  240,  241  ;  his 
love  for  her,  243 

Margaret,  daughter  of  Erik  the 
Saint,  154 

Margaret,  Queen,  her  marriage, 
141  ;  she  is  Queen  Regent  of 
Norway  and  Denmark,  142  ;  is 
chosen  Queen  of  Sweden,  167, 
177,  178;  she  defeats  King  Albert, 
167,  178;  her  able  rule,  167  ;  her 
nephew  Erik  appointed  her 
successor,  168,  174,  176  ;  she 
effects  the  union  of  the  three 
kingdoms,  168  ;  is  chosen  Queen 
of  Norway,  1 68,  174  ;  and  of 
Denmark,  168,  175  ;  her  popu- 
larity, 175  ;  what  foreigners 
thought  of  her,  176  ;  she  avenges 
the  insults  of  King  Albert,  178  ; 
Stockholm  resists  her,  179  ;  she 
releases  King  Albert  on  payment 
of  a  ransom,  ib.  ;  Erik's  in- 
capacity, 1 80  ;  she  sails  to  Slesvig, 
181  ;  her  death,  182  ;  her  fame, 
ib.  ;  the  tact  with  which  she 
ruled,  184 


392 


INDEX. 


Margaret  of  Pomerania,  Queen 
Regent  of  Denmark,  129  ;  she 
is  imprisoned  by  Duke  Erik  of 
Slesvig,  ib. 

Margrete,  "  Maid  of  Norway,"  her 
death,  172 

Margrete  of  Bohemia,  Queen  of 
Valdemar  II.,  121  ;  called  Dag- 
mar,  or  "  Day's  Maiden,"  .'/'.  ; 
ballads  in  celebration  of  her,  ib. 

Margrete,  Swedish  Princess,  the 
"  Peace-Maiden,"  152 

Maria  Eleanore,  Queen  of  Gustaf 
Adolf,  mourns  his  death,  284 

Marta,  Queen  of  Sweden,  and  the 
murder  of  the  princes,  161, 
162 

Massilia,  the  present  Marseilles,  2 

Mats  Ketilmundsson,  and  Magnus 
Smek,  163 

Metzenhcim,  Hans,  brings  up  Prince 
Christian,  213 

Mikkelsen,  Niels,  his  persecution, 
247 

Munk,  Kirstine,  second  wife  of 
Christian  IV.,  255  ;  her  banish- 
ment, 256 


N. 

Nadod,  a  Norwegian,  discovers 
Iceland,  73 

New  Testament  translated  into 
Danish,  223. 

Niels,  King  of  Denmark,  no  ;  his 
feeble  reign,  IOO  ;  his  defeat  in 
Fodevig,  101  ;  he  takes  refuge  in 
Slesvig,//'.  ;  he  is  slain  by  Knud's 
guild-brothers,  102 

Niels  Ebbeson,  a  Jutlander,  slays 
Count  Ceert,  135  ;  he  drives  the 
Holsteiners  to  their  own  territory, 
ib.  ;  his  defeat  by  the  Iron  Count, 
ih. 

Nikolaus,grandson  of  Valdemar  1 1., 

122 


Nils  Sture,  proclaimed  a  traitor, 
240  ;  he  is  stabbed  by  King  Erik, 
ib. 

Nilsson,  Professor,  of  Stockholm,  5 

Nordlingen,  battle  of,  285 

Normandy,  its  settlement  by  Rollo, 
69,  70  ;  origin  of  its  name,  70 

Norroena  Mai,  or  Northern  speech, 

13.  H 

Northmen.     See  Scandinavians. 

Nonvay,  joined  with  Denmark  for 
five  years,  56,  57  ;  but  little 
known  in  early  times,  58  ;  fabled 
foundation  of  its  monarchy,  62  ; 
the  first  King  of  all  Norway,  68  ; 
in  early  times,  72;  Ilarald 
Haarfager's  stern  rule  drives 
many  of  his  subjects  away,  ib.  ; 
the  discovery  and  settlement  of 
Iceland,  ib.  ;  invaded  by  the 
Danes  in  A.I).  963,  79;  early 
troubles,  150;  the  election  of  the 
Three  Kings,  152  ;  troubles 
caused  by  claimants  to  the  throne, 
153  ;  the  "  Birch-Legs  "  and  the 
"  Croziers,"  154  ;  the  crown 
declared  to  be  a  lief  of  St.  Olaf, 
155  ;  its  kings  first  crowned  in  a 
church,  ib.  ;  increased  influence 
of  the  clergy,  ib.  ;  union  of  the 
three  kingdoms,  1 68,  I, So  ;  from 

A.I).     1217      to    A.I).       1400,      J09; 

under  Queen  Margaret,  174,  176  ; 
union  with  1  )enmark  renewed, 
199 

Norwegians,  their  old  faith,  63  ;  the 
little  regard  they  had  for  life,  //'.  ; 
their  voyages,  discoveries,  and 
settlements,  67,  69,  72,  84 


Oath     of    the    P>raga,    61    ;    of    the 

Icelanders,  ~^ 
Oceandiseoveries  by  the  Norwegians, 

67 


INDEX. 


393 


Odense,  King  Knud  murdered  there, 
95,  96  ;  his  shrine,  96 

Odin,  his  faith,  12  ;  its  precepts, 
ib.  ;  his  favour  to  the  rich,  13  ; 
his  last  appearance  on  earth,  27  ; 
sacrifices  to  him  at  Lejre,  36,  37  ; 
victims  to,  37,  63  ;  he  founds  the 
Empire  of  the  Svea,  59  ;  horse- 
flesh eaten  by  his  worshippers, 

J45 

Ofralse  and  F raise  classes  in  Sweden, 

159 

Ohthere,  visits  Britain,  7  ;  his  settle- 
ments and  discoveries,  67 

Olaf-Hunger,  how  he  became  King 
of  Denmark,  97  ;  the  famine  in 
his  reign,  98  ;  his  death,  ib. 

Olaf,  King  of  Denmark,  141  ;  the 
regency  of  Queen  Margxret,  142  ; 
succeeds  to  the  crown  of  Norway, 
142,  175  ;  his  death,  142,  174, 
175  ;  his  funeral,  175  ;  his  heart 
carried  to  Denmark,  ib. 

Olaf,  King  of  Lochlin,  70 

Olaf  Kyrre,  King  of  Norway,  his 
peaceful  reign,  151  ;  his  death, 
152 

Olaf,  son  of  Magnus  Barfod, 
152 

Olaf,  Swedish  chief,  invades  Lejre, 
37  ;  his  sons  Ehnob  and  Gurd, 
ib. 

Olaf  the  Lap  -  King,  the  first 
Christian  King  of  Sweden,  82  ; 
his  people  remain  heathens,  83  ; 
his  quarrels  with  Olaf  the  Saint, 
King  of  Norway,  ib.  ;  bold 
language  of  the  peasants  to  him, 
il>.  ;  his  son  Anund  made  joint 
ruler,  84 

Olaf  the  Saint,  King  of  Norway, 
80  ;  his  death,  ib.  ;  the  miracles 
wrought  by  his  corpse,  8l  ;  his 
shrine  of  silver,  ib. 

Olaf  Troetelje,  he  clears  Vermland, 
62  ;  is  sacrificed  to  Odin,  ib.  ;  his 
decendants  found  the  kingdom  of 
Norway,  ib. 


Olaf  Trygvasson,  King  of  Norway, 
79  ;  his  deeds,  wars  and  death, 
So 

Oldenburg  race  of  kings,  1 88 
Orgil   Ragnarsen,  hung  for  piracy, 

95 

Orkneys  lost  to  Norway,  201 
Oslo,  battle  of,  170 
Osmanni,     or     East-men,      Danish 

vikingar,  21 
Otho     I.,     Emperor    of   Germany, 

defeats  the  Danes,  49 
Otto     of     Schaumberg,      and    the 

Holstein  lands,  201 
Otto,  son  of  Christopher  II.,  136  ; 

enters  the  monastic  order  of  the 

German  Knights,  ib. 
Oxe,   Peder,  minister  of  Frederick 

II.,  247 
Oxe,  Torbe,  his  execution,  220 


Falnatoke,    brings    up   Svend,   49  ; 

story    of    his     famous     archery, 

50 

Paris,  the  first  siege  of,  40 
Peter's   pence     first    paid     by     the 

Swedes,  145 
Petri,     Laurentius,    the    Reformer, 

232  ;  his  death,  258 
Petri,  Olaus,  the  Reformer,  232 
Philip    Augustus    of     France,     his 

cruelty  to  his  Queen,  III 
Pliilippa,  Queen,  rules  during  Erik's 

absence,  185  ;  her  abilities,  ib. 
Phoenicians    in     the   north  ;     their 

religion,   5 

Pontiff-kings  of  Scandinavia,  63 
Poppa,  German  monk,  49 
Protestant  faith  established   in  Den- 
mark, 224  ;  in  Sweden,  232,  233, 

235,  261 
Pytheas,    his   travels,    2  ;  in   Thule, 

3  ;  a  scientific  traveller,   5 


394 


INDEX. 


R. 

Ranejonsen,  his  treachery,  130;  his 

execution,  131 
Rantzau,    Daniel,    Danish    general, 

239,  245,  246 
Reformers  in   Denmark,   219,    222, 

224;  in   Sweden,    232,   233,  235, 

261 
Regner   Lodhrog,  his  clangers  and 

adventures,    28  ;  his    death,   ib.  ; 

his  sons  avenge  it,  28,  29  ;   they 

divide  ^Ella's  kingdom,  29 
Reid-Gotaland,  or  the  Firm  Goth's- 

land,  19,  20,  21,  22 
Reinhard,      Martin,     preaches     the 

Gospel  to  the  Danes,  219 
Rhode  Island,  "  VinlanddenGode," 

87 
Riddarhuset,  or  Knight's  House,  of 

Sweden,  275 
Rikissa,    sister     of    Valdemar    II., 

marries  Erik  Knudsson,  149  ;  she 

returns  to  Denmark,  ib. 
Ringsted    Abbey,   royal   burials   in, 

108,  121,  163' 
Rink,  an  Anabaptist,  driven  out  of 

Sweden,  233 
Robert,  Duke  of  Normandy,  his  wife 

Estrid,  54 

Rb'da  Boken,  or  Red  Book,  259 
Rognvald,    Jarl   of  M.vrc,    69  ;    his 

death,  ib. 
Rolf  Krake,  King  of  the  Danes,  his 

virtues,    25  ;    his  death  avenged, 

26 
Rollo  the  Norman,  his  practice  of 

"  Strand-hug,"  69  ;  he  is  outlawed 

by  King  Harakl,   ib.  ;  he  founds 

Normandy,  70 
Roman    ladies   wear   amber   beads, 

8 

Romans  defeat  the  Northmen,  7 
Rome,  veiled  by  Knud,  54  ;  Erik's 

pilgrimage  to,  99  ;   pilgrimage  of 

King  Valdemar  to,  158 
Runes',  letter>   used   by  the   North- 
men, 14 


Rurik,  subdues  the  Slaves  and 
Finns,  66  ;  visits  Greece,  ib.  ; 
settles  in  Russia,  ib. 

Russia,  the  Northmen  sett'e  in,  15  ; 
their  descendants,  ib.;  pillaged  by 
Gorm,  40  ;  founders  of  the  empire 
come  from  Sweden,  65  ;  invasions 
by  the  Swedes,  269  ;  defeated  by 
them,  274 

Russians  show  their  power  in 
Sweden,  262 

Russ-tjenst,  or  service  with  men  and 
horses,  160 

Rybe,  or  the  Partridge,  story  of,  173 

Rygen,  the  Island  of,  its  inhabitants 
subdued  and  baptized,  105,  106 


Sagas,  or  tales,  9  ;  of  the  Danes, 
23  ;  the  Ynglinga  Saga,  62  ;  the 
Eyrbyggja  Saga,  74 

St.  Peter's  pence  first  paid  by  the 
Swedes,  145 

St.  Petersburg  on  Swedish  ground, 

275 

Saxo  Grammnticus,  historian  of 
Denmark,  23,  50,  64,  in 

Saxons  in  liritain,  18,  19  ;  they  are 
subdued  by  Charlemagne,  21 

Scandinavia  in  early  times,  I,  58; 
its  division  into  small  states,  20, 
29  ;  Sagas  of  its  people,  23  ;  end 
of  the  mythic  age,  26 

Scandinavians,  ignorance  of  South- 
erners in  regard  to,  I,  8  ;  in  the 
South,  7,  15  ;  their  German  origin, 
9  ;  their  language,  13  ;  their  letters, 
14;  at  home,  17  :  their  invasion 
of  Britain,  18,  19;  they  are 
driven  out  of  Britain,  29  ;  how 
the  Gospel  was  first  preached  to 
them,  31  ;  their  early  habits,  39  ; 
their  rovings  in  King  Gorm's  time, 
40 

Scotland,  settlements  made  by  the 
Danes  and  Norwegians,  70 


INDEX. 


395 


Shetlands  lost  to  Norway,  201 

Siegfred,  a  King  in  Jutland,  21 

Siegfred,  an  Englishman,  his  labours 
among  the  Swedes,  82 

Siegfred,  Vikingar,  his  rovings,  40, 
41  ;  his  death,  44 

SiePric,  King  of  Lejre,  37 

Sigbrit,  Mother,  her  influence  over 
Christian  II.,  219;  the  death  of 
her  daughter  Dyveke,  or  the  Dove, 
220 

Sigismund,  son  of  Johan  III., 
succeeds  to  the  Polish  crown,  260  ; 
he  returns  to  Sweden,  263  ;  his 
zeal  for  Roman  Catholicism,  ib..  ; 
he  is  crowned  at  Upsala,  264  ;  the 
charter  he  signed,  ib.  ;  he  returns 
to  Poland,  ib.  ;  he  is  defeated  by 
Karl,  265  ;.  he  reigns  in  Poland 
until  his  death,  266 

Sigrid,  daughter  of  Erik,  243 

Sigtuna,  Odin's  temple  at,  59,  60 

Sigurd  Jarl  turns  the  anger  of  the 
people  from  Hakon,  78 

Sigurd  Jorsalafar,  King  of  Norway, 
goes  to  Jerusalem,  152  ;  gives 
away  his  ships  and  returns  to 
Norway  over-land,  153  ;  the 
ordeal  of  a  red-hot  iron,  ib.  ;  his 
death,  ib. 

Sigurd  Ring,  King  of  Sweden, 
defeats  Harald  Hildetand,  27  ; 
how  he  honoured  his  memory, 
28 

Sjcelland,  the  Island  of,  21  ;  origin 
of  its  name,  23 

Skaania,  Swedish  province  of  Den- 
mark, 23,  38  ;  origin  of  its  name, 
23,  64 
Skalds,  or  poets,  9  ;  their  Sagas,  9, 

23,  62,  74 
Skrrclingar,    or   dwarfs,     of    North 

America,  87 

Skule  Kaardsson,  rebels  against 
Hakon  IV.,  170;  his  defeat  and 
death,  ib. 

Skytte,  Johan,  tutor  of  Gustaf  Adolf, 
273 


Slesvig,  visited  by  the  monks,  34  ; 
under  Knud  Lavard,  100;  wars 
with  Holstein  begin,  126  ;  granted 
to  Counts  of  Holstein,  142  ;  wars, 
181,  184  ;  Erik's  appeal  to  the 
Emperor  Sigismund,  185;  peace, 
186  ;  Slesvig  and  Holstein  united, 
200 

Smaa  Kongar,  or  Small  Kings,  20, 
61 

Snorre  Sturlasson,  his  murder, 
171 

Sofia,  Queen  of  Sweden,  158 

Sophia  of  Mecklenburg,  Queen  of 
Denmark,  249,  250 

Soro,  monastery  of,  23  ;  academy 
of,  253 

Spread  Eagle,  torture  of  the,  29 

Stserkodder,  King  of  the  Danes, 
who  alone  ould  kill  him,  25 

Stangebro,  battle  of,  265 

Sten  Sture,  proclaimed  Marshal  of 
Sweden,  197  ;  he  defeats  King 
Christian,  ib.  :  the  country  pros- 
perous for  a  time,  197,  208  ;  his 
unpopularity,  208  ;  he  submits 
to  King  Hans,  204,  209  ;  he 
drives  the  Danes  out  of  the 
country,  205  ;  his  death,  205, 
209 

Sten  Sture  the  younger,  the  best  of 
the  Stures,  210  ;.  he  defeats 
Christian  II.,  ib.  ;  he  is  excom- 
municated, 211  ;  his  death,  211, 

215 
Stenkil,   first   Christian  King  of  all 

Sweden,    144 ;    peace  during   his 

reign,   ib. 

Stettin,  peace  of,  247,  260 
Stiklestad,  battle  of,  80 
Stockholm,     its     foundation,     158  ; 

Francisc.m     monastery    at,    160  ; 

anger  of  the  citizens  with  Birger, 

162  ;  they  refuse  to  accept  Queen 

Margaret,    179  ;    the    l!lood-bath 

at,  215,  216 
Stolbuva,  peace  of,  274 
Strand- hug,    old   northern  practice, 


396 


INDEX. 


69  ;  forbidden  by  Christian  II., 
218 

Stures  rule  Sweden,  208,209  ;  Erik's 
cruelty  to,  240 

Svante  Sture,  is  adopted  by  Sten 
Sture,  209  ;  chosen  Marshal  of 
Sweden  ;  his  love  of  war  and 
soldiers,  209,  210 ;  his  sudden 
death,  210 

Svanteveit,  god  of  the  Slaves, 
destruction  of  his  temple  at 
Arcona,  105,  106 

Svea.   See  Swedes,  and  Sweden. 

Svend  Aagesen,  Danish  historian, 
23,  in 

Svend  Estridsen,  nephew  of  Knud, 
is  brought  up  by  him,  54  ;  Magnus 
makes  him  Jarl  of  Denmark,  57  ; 
he  rebels,  ib.  ;  Magnus  forgives 
him  and  appoints  him  his  successor 
to  the  Danish  crown,  ib.  ;  his  wars 
with  Ilarald  Haardraade,  King  of 
Norway,  90  ;  his  message  to 
William  the  Conqueror,  ib.  ;  the 
fate  of  his  hostile  fleet,  ib.  ;  his 
character  and  appearance,  91  ; 
his  learning,  and  love  of  learned 
men,  ib. ;  his  friendship  for  Adam, 
Canon  of  Bremen,  ib.  ;  his 
intimacy  with  William,  Bishop  of 
Roeskikle,  ib.  ;  his  act  of  murder, 
92  ;  Bishop  William  turns  him 
out  of  church,  ib.  ;  his  peni- 
tence, ib.  :  why  he  was  called 
"  Estridsen,"  93  ;  the  ancestor  of 
the  Royal  families  of  Britain  and 
Denmark,  ib.  ;  his  sons,  94 

Svend,  King  of  Norway,  54  ;  his 
body  disinterred,  56 

Svend,  son  of  Knud,  King  of 
Norway,  So,  81 

Svend  Tvesk;vg,  son  of  Ilarald 
Blaatand,  his  bringing  up  by 
1'alnatoke,  49  ;  he  defeats  his 
father,  50  ;  invades  England,  ib.  ; 
his  death,  51 

Sverker  Karlsson,  King  of  Sweden, 
his  reign,  145  :  his  cruelty.  148  ; 


he  flees  to  Denmark,  ib.  ;  he 
returns,  and  is  defeated  at  Lena, 
149  ;  he  is  murdered,  145,  146 

Sverre,  leader  of  the  "  Birch  Legs," 
crowned  King  of  Norway,  154  ; 
his  able  rule,  ib.  ;  his  death, 
ib. 

Svithjod.  greater,  and  lesser,  59 

Svold,  battle  of,  80 

Sweden,  visited  by  Anscarius,  34  ; 
Christianity  in,  31,  82,  143  ;  but 
little  known  in  early  times,  58, 
65  ;  fabled  account  of  its  founda- 
tion by  Odin,  59  ;  its  Pontiff- 
kings,  63  ;  quarrels  between  the 
Svea  and  the  Gota,  82,  83  ;  the 
first  Christian  kings,  82,  143  ; 
bold  language  of  the  peasantry  to 
Olaf  the  Lap-king,  83  ;  its  history 
in  early  times,  143  ;  troubled 
times,  147  ;  the  influence  of  the 
monks,  148;  from  A.n.  1250  to 
A.D.  1400,  157  ;  the  Eolkungar 
kings,  ill.  ;  the  Free  and  Un-free 
first  distinguished,  159  ;  half  a 
century  of  troubles,  163  ;  under 
foreign  rule,  165  ;  union  with 
Denmark,  168,  180;  under  Queen 
Margaret,  177  ;  under  Danish 
rulers,  192  ;  and  Denmark,  from 
A.D.  1450,  198  ;  the  crown 
bartered  for  favours,  203  ;  the 
fall  of  the  Stures,  208  ;  between 
A.D.  1520  and  A.D.  1568,  227; 
union  with  Denmark  dissolved, 
231  ;  the  Protestant  faith  in,  232, 
233,  235,  261  ;  wars  with  Den- 
mark, 239,244,251,  254,  287; 
between  A.  n.  1568  and  A.  I).  Kill, 

257  ;    females   allowed    to   reign, 

258  ;  religious   troubles   in,    263  ; 
rise  of  the  Swedish  power,  267  ; 
from    A.n.     1611    to    A.D.     1644, 
272 

Swedes,  their  descent,  60  ;  their  old 
faith,  63  ;  how  they  were  inter- 
mingled with  the  Danes,  65  ;  in 
Russia,  65,  66.  269 


INDEX. 


397 


T. 

Tast,  Hermann,  Danish  Reformer, 

222 
Tausen,    Hans,    Danish    Reformer, 

222 

Thing,  or  public  assembly,  67,  97, 
120 

Thomas,  the  Junker,  his  cruelty, 
231  ;  his  execution,  ib. 

Thor,  son  of  Odin,  1 1  ;  favourite 
god  of  the  Norwegians,  ib.  ; 
temple  dedicated  to  him  by 
Thorolf,  75  ;  his  silver  ring,  ib.  ; 
his  mallet,  79 

Thorleif  the  Wise,  his  laws,  77 

Thorolf-Moskar-Skegg,  sails  from 
Norway,  74  ;  he  takes  with  him 
an  image  of  Thor  to  Iceland,  75  ; 
he  lands  and  takes  formal  posses- 
sion at  Breida  -  Fjord,  ib.  ;  he 
builds  a  temple  to  Thor,  and 
deposits  in  it  the  sacred  silver 
ring,  ib.  ;  he  prepares  for  the 
Herjar-Thing,  ib.  ;  he  divides 
Iceland  into  districts,  76 

Thule,  the  search  for,  3 

Thure  Thuresson,  the  "  Peasants' 
Butcher,"  196 

Thurida,  daughter  of  Snorre  Code, 
88 

Thyra,  Gothic  princess,  defended  by 
a  serpent,  28 

Thyra,  first  Queen  of  Denmark,  her 
descent,  45  ;  she  rules  in  Gorm's 
absence,  45,  47  ;  her  memory 
much  respected,  45  ;  she  favours 
the  Christians,  46  ;  how  she  built 
up  ramparts,  47  ;  the  way  she  told 
Gorm  of  his  son's  death,  ib.  ;  her 
grave  mound,  48 

Tilly,  Count  John,  defeated  by 
the  Swedes,  279 ;  his  death, 
ib. 

Ting  allra  Gota,  or  Diet  of  the 
Goths,  35 

Tithes  disputed  by  the  Danes,  95, 
108 


Torkel  Knudsson  governs  for  King 
Birger,  160 

Torstensson,  Lennart,  Swedish  com- 
mander, his  talents  and  infir- 
mities, 286  ;  called  the  "Swedish 
Lightning,"  287  ;  his  victories, 
ib.  ;  war  with  Denmark,  ib.  ; 
battle  of  Jaukowitz,  287  ;  he 
resigns  his  command,  288 


U. 

Ulf  Jarl,  murdered  by  Knud,  52 
Ulfeld,  Eleanore  Kirstine,  and   her 

husband,  256 
Ulfljot,  studies  the  laws  in  Norway 

and  draws  up  a  code  for  Iceland, 

76,  77 
Unni,  Archbishop  of  Bremen,  visits 

Denmark,  46 
Upp-Sala,  or  the  High  Halls,  temple 

to  Odin,  60 
Upsala,    burning  of  the   six   Small 

Kings,  6 1  ;  a  sacred  place,    144  ; 

the  first  church  is  built  there,  146  ; 

the   death   of  Erik  the  Saint    at, 

147  ;   Assembly  at,  in  1593,  261  ; 

University    of,      its     foundation, 

197  ;  enriched  by  Gustaf  Adolf, 

275 


V. 

Vseringjar,  body  -  guards  of  the 
Emperors  at  Constantinople,  15 

Valdemar  Atterdag,  King  of  Den- 
mark, how  he  came  to  the  throne, 
136  ;  his  brother  Otto's  fate,  ib.  ; 
his  marriage,  ib.  ;  he  recovers 
crown  lands  by  purchase,  137;  his 
taking  of  \Visby,  ib.  ;  his  con- 
tempt of  the  Hansers,  138  ;  wars 
with  Germany,  ib.  ;  he  seizes 
Princess  Elizabeth  of  Holstein, 
ib.  ;  marries  his  daughter  Margaret 


398 


INDEX. 


to  the  heir  of  Sweden,  139  ;  in 
trouble,  ib.;  his  humiliation,  flight, 
and  return  to  Denmark,  140 ; 
people's  hatred  of  him,  ib.  ;  why 
called  "Atterdag,"  141 ;  his  death, 
ib. 

Valdemar,  Bishop  of  Slesvig,  HO; 
his  imprisonment,  III  ;  his 
enmity  with  Valdemar  II.,  114 

Valdemar,  Duke,  son  of  Magnus, 
his  quarrels  with  King  Birger, 
160;  he  is  imprisoned  and  starved 
to  death,  161,  162 

Valdemar.  King  of  Sweden,  how  he 
was  elected,  150,  157  ;  his  father 
rules  through  him,  158  ;  his 
incapacity,  and  quarrels  with  his 
brothers,  ib.  ;  his  imprisonment 
and  death,  159  ;  his  son,  ib. 

Valdemar,  son  of  Valdemar  II., 
117,  I2t 

Valdemar  of  Slesvig,  is  crowned  King 
of  Denmark,  134;  he  surrenders 
his  claim  to  the  tlirone,  136 

Valdcmar,  son  of  King  Abel,  Duke 
of  Slesvig,  126,  129;  and  the 
murderers  of  Erik  Clipping,  132 

Valdemar  I.,  King  of  Denmark,  his 
coronation,  104  ;  his  cowardice  in 
youth  and  his  subsequent  courage, 
105  ;  his  campaigns  against  the 
[lagans,  105,  100  ;  heassists  Bishop 
Absalon  to  subdue  the  peasants  in 
Skaania.  107  ;  his  death,  108  ; 
his  burial,  ib. 

Valdemar  II.,  defeats  the  Bishop  of 
Slesvig,  IIO;  is  chosen  King  of 
Denmark,  112  ;  prosperity  of  the 
country  under  his  rule,  113  ;  he 
is  surnamed  "Sejr,"  ib.  ;  Ins 
successes,  114;  lie  is  defeated  in 
Sweden,  //'.  ;  his  crusade  against 
the  pagans,  ib.  ;  his  downfall, 
I  15  ;  the  fatal  hunt  at  Lyo,  116  ; 
lie  and  his  son  are  captured  and 
imprisoned  lor  three  years,  116, 
117;  the  terms  on  which  they  are 
rclea.seti.  118  ;  lie  is  defeated  and 


wounded  at  Bornhoved,  1 19  ;  his 
merits  in  peace,  ib.  ;  his  death 
and  children,  120;  his  Queens, 
1 20,  J2i  ;  how  the  Danes  cherish 
his  memory,  121 

Vnsa.    derivation  of  the   name,    228 

Vedel,  Anders  Sorensen,  Danish 
historian,  248 

Vermland,  its  forests  burnt  by  Olaf, 
62 

Verona,  battle  at,  8 

Vesteraas,  battle  of,  230 

Victoria,  Queen,  her  Danish  ancestry, 

93 
Vikingar,    its    meaning,    15   ;    they 

harass  Britain,  21  ;  are  driven  out 

of  England,  29 
Vilhelm,  Bishop   of  Koeskilde,    his 

character,    91  ;    he    thrusts   King 

Svend  out  of  church,  92 
Vinland  den  (rode,  its  discovery  by 

Leif,  S6  ;  iis   grapes,  87  ;  settler* 

all  murdered  by  natives,  il>.  ;  last 

notice  of  it,  ib. 
Vitalen,  or  Victualling,  Brotherhood, 

179 

Vogg,  revenges  the  death  of  Rolf 
Krake,  25 


W. 

Wallenstein,  Duke,  tries  to  foment 
a  rising  in  Sweden.  277  ;  in 
disgrace  with  the  Kmpcror,  278  ; 
battle  of  l.iit/.en,  2So 

\Valo,  Abbot  of  (  orvey  in  Picardy, 

33 

Week  days,  thcit  names,  II 
Wends,  or  Yanen,  05,  100,   109 
Westphalia,  peace  of,  288 
Wittekind,  Saxon   chief,  21 
William,  Bishop  of  Koeskilde.     S« 

/  'illifhn. 
William      the      Conqueror.        King 

Svrnd's  message  to  him,  90 
Wind    blowing  from    the    north,    a 

good  omen,   229 


INDEX. 


399 


Wisby,  taken  by  Valdemar  Atterdag, 
137 


their  descent  from  Odin,  ib.  ;  how 
they  lost  Sweden,  6l 


Wulfstan,    visits     Britain,     7  ;    his       Yule,  its  meaning,   6 
settlements  and  discoveries,  67 


Y. 

Ynglinga  Saga,  62 

Ynglingar,   royal  race  of  the,    60  ; 


Zoe,  Empress,  her  love  for  Harald 
Haardraade,    151 


LONDOX  :     •*      CLAY,    SON.''      AND    TAYLOR,    PRINTERS 


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